GRAFTAGE GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 



135 



198. Unreliability of seeds. Graftage or some other 

 asexual process is necessary also because seeds cannot 

 be relied upon to produce varieties of tree and bush 

 fruits or of many shrubs, herbaceous perennials and other 

 plants true to name, the reason being that the type has 

 not been fixed by that method as in the case of many 

 vegetables, annuals and some perennial flowers. 



For instance, if seeds of the Northern Spy apple (199) or of 

 Salway peach were sown, all we might be able to say of the 

 young trees grown would be that they were respectively apple and 

 peach trees ; possibly not one would resemble the parent enough 

 to deserve the name Northern Spy apple or Salway peach. 



The cause of this lies in the fact 

 that from prehistoric time flowers 

 of fruits have naturally cross pol- 

 linated, perhaps usually not been 

 fertilized by their own pollen nor 

 perhaps even by that from other 

 flowers in the same cluster or yet 

 the same tree, but from some 

 tree of a different variety. Wind 

 and insects are the chief carriers 

 of the pollen which impresses 

 parental characters upon the 

 ovules in the flowers of our 

 Northern Spy apple or Salway 

 peach so the seedlings may be 

 better, but the overwhelming 

 chances are they will not be even 

 as good. This form of reproduc- 

 tion, continued for countless 

 centuries, has mixed things up 

 so that seeds cannot be relied 

 upon in the classes mentioned. 

 The exceptions are so conspicuous that they prove the rule. 



Among peaches the Honey group, grown to some ex- 

 tent in Florida, and the Heath Cling come fairly true to 

 type from seed. Among apples it is said the Duchess of 



FIG. 119 PRECOCIOUS CLEFT 



GRAFTS 



Lower cion set five apples the 

 first year and the upper two had 

 several fruits the second year. 



