How Trees are Multiplied 



even if it appeared first in a seedling. It is too new to be fixed, 

 except by grafting cions from the original tree. 



The extent to which grafting and budding can be practised 

 was at first much exaggerated. Virgil prophesied thus: 



"Thou Shalt lend 

 Grafts of rude arbute unto the walnut tree: 

 Shalt bid the unfruitful plane sound apples bear, 

 Chestnuts the beech, the ash blow white with the pear, 

 And under the elm, the sow on acorns fare." 



Pliny's report of "cherry growing upon the willow, the plane 

 upon the laurel, the laurel upon the cherry, and fruits of various 

 tints and hues all springing from the same tree at once," is like 

 other of his vain imaginings. 



Abram Cowley, in 1666, comes nearer the truth, as he should 

 with centuries of experience to lean upon, in these lines: 



"We nowhere Art do so triumphant see, 

 As when it Grafts or Buds the Tree; 







He bids the ill-natur'd Crab produce 

 The gentle Apple's Winy Juice 



He does the savage Hawthorn teach 

 To bear the Medlar and the Pear 

 He bids the rustic Plum to rear 

 A noble Trunk and be a Peach." 



The modern rule of "seed on seed and pit on pit' is embodied 

 in this account. The species named are all in the same botanical 

 family at least. Plums are budded upon peach stocks in the 

 South. Peach-rooted trees thrive better in the hot, sandy soil 

 than plum-rooted trees do. In the Northern States peaches are 

 budded on plum stocks which are hardier in the native kinds. 

 Crab apples, native to various regions, prove good stocks for 

 introduced varieties of apples. 



The limits of grafting are not very well defined yet. The 

 safest and most practicable method is to inter-graft varieties of 

 one species. Remoter relationships admit of union sometimes, 

 as the peach and plum, which are of different species; by some 

 authorities these are considered of different genera. The moun- 

 tain ash has served as a stock for apples again, two different 

 genera. But these instances are plainly beyond safe limits. 



The origination of new varieties by hybridisation is an entirely 



499 



