IS GRAFTAGE DEVITALIZING? 155 



"Grafting is always a makeshift, and very often a fraud. It 

 is in effect a kind of adulteration. Grafted plants are open to all 

 kinds of accidents and disaster, and often soil, climate or cultivator 

 are blamed for evils which originated in the nursery. If, in cer- 

 tain cases, grafting as a convenience must be resorted to, let it be 

 root grafting, so that eventually the cion will root itself in a natural 

 way. Toy games, such as grafting and budding, must be abandoned 

 and real work begun on some sensible plan. Any tree that will 

 not succeed on its own roots had better go to the rubbish pile at 

 once. We want no coddled or grafted stuff when own-rooted 

 things are in all ways better, healthier and longer lived." 



These quotations show the positiveness with which graftage has 

 been assailed. As presumption is in favor of any universal prac- 

 tice they possess extraordinary interest. 



The assumptions underlying these denunciations are three : 1. 

 Citation of instances in which graftage has given pernicious re- 

 sults. 2. Affirmation that the process is unnatural. 3. The state- 

 ment that own-rooted plants are better than graft-rooted plants. 



t. Citations of injurious effects of graftage are usually confined to 

 ornamental plants, commonly the tendency of stocks to sucker and 

 choke grafts. Conversely, in numerous instances it does not occur ; 

 for instance, in peach, apple, pear, and many other fruit trees, and 

 in very many ornamentals. In fact, it is probably no more common 

 than is suckering of plants grown from cuttings; for instance, 

 cutting-grown or sucker-grown plums. These remarks apply with 

 equal force to all citations of the ill effects of graftage; the cases 

 simoly show that the operation is open to objections in the partic- 

 ular instances cited ; no proof that with other plants graftage may 

 not be a success. Graftage lias been indiscriminately employed, 

 and there have been many failures, but this does not prove the 

 process wrong. If there are plants upon which graftage is success- 

 ful the operation itself is not wrong, however many cases there 

 may be to which it is not adapted. 



2. That graftage is unnatural, and therefore pernicious, is a 

 fallacy. There is nothing to show it is anything more unnatural 

 than making cuttings. If naturalness is proved by frequency of 

 occurrence in nature, then graftage is the more natural. But the 

 whole discussion of mere naturalness of any operation is aside 

 from the question ; for every garden operation transplanting, 

 pruning or tillage is in some sense unnatural : yet these "unnat- 

 ural processes" sometimes increase plant longevity and virility. 



3. An assumption held with dogmatic positiveness by many 

 writers is that own-rooted plants are better than foster-rooted 

 ones. If mere rarity or lack of occurrence in nature is no proof 

 of perniciousness, the statement admits of argument just as 

 much as any other topic. The citation of ill effects of graftage is 

 no proof that own-rooted plants are better if there should still 

 remain cases in which no injurious effects follow. If it is true that 

 "own-rooted things are in all ways infinitely better, healthier, and 



