AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 219 



successfully, though with some difficulty, performed with the 

 buds inverted, the wood cells consisting of even cylindrical 

 tubes, through which the circulation will pass in either direc- 

 tion. 



Budding is often called inoculating, but this name seems to 

 have originated in a misconception. Inoculation is, in medical 

 practice, the introduction of a virus into the circulation, which 

 spreads through it. But budding and grafting are the simple 

 planting of a bud or branch cutting in circumstances favora- 

 ble to its rapid growth and development as a tree. Nothing 

 from it, so far as we know, permeates the system and affects 

 the character of the stock ; nor does it receive any appreciable 

 modification in its own essential characteristics from the stock ; 

 but uniting with it, or living as a parasite upon it, and deriv- 

 ing its nourishment through it, its own inherent force is put 

 forth in the formation of its system of stem, branches, and 

 fruit, the stock also retaining for itself the same distinct indi- 

 viduality, each preserving in undiminished force its peculiar 

 local powers of appropriate secretion and organization, all 

 growth from below the junction being constantly throughout 

 the life of the tree " natural," or of the stock, and all above 

 the 'junction partaking with equal constancy of the nature of 

 the graft. There is, therefore, no analogy between inoculation 

 and budding, and we retain the latter term. Contrary to the 

 above views, it has been supposed by some that late fruits are 

 materially affected in their period of maturing by being bud- 

 ded or grafted on stocks of early kinds ; but if this were so, of 

 which I have failed to find proof, the converse ought also to be 

 true, and our early fruits become belated by grafting upon 

 stocks of later varieties ; but almost all apple stocks are raised 

 from kinds comparatively late. Upon these our earliest apple 

 the little white Early May has been continuously worked 

 for centuries, and upon this theory it is inconceivable that it 

 should have retained its distinctive character. 



It may, perhaps, be regarded as certain that, in general, the 

 stock affects the graft only in two ways : first, by its own hard- 

 iness and durability, securing, under proper conditions, contin- 

 uance to the graft inserted in it ; and, second, by the character 



