GRAFTAGE 105 



OBJECTS OF GRAFTING 



The reasons for grafting plants are well set forth by Baltet* as 

 follows: "The object of grafting is 



1. To change the character of a plant, by modifying the wood, 

 the foliage or the fruit which it was required to produce. 



2. To excite the development of branches, flowers, or fruit on 

 the parts of a tree where they are deficient. 



3. To restore a defective or exhausted tree by transfusion of 

 the fresh sap of a vigorous kind. 



4. To bring together on the same stem the two sexes of monce- 

 ciousf plants, in order to facilitate their reproduction. 



5. To preserve and propagate a. great number of woody or 

 herbaceous plants for use or ornament, which could not be repro- 

 duced by any other means of multiplication." 



THE RESULTS OF GRAFTING 



After the cion grows it produces its leaf, flower, or "fruit after its 

 kind." Shoots from below the point of union continue to produce 

 their own characteristic leaves, flowers and fruits. Grafting hardly 

 ever materially changes the qualities of the characteristic stock 

 and cion. 



Dr. L. H. BaileyJ has summarized several effects of grafting 

 which are of interest. 



1. Dwarfing. Grafting may alter the stature of a plant. It is 

 a common method of dwarfing plants. The pear is dwarfed by 

 grafting on Quince; the Apple by working on the Paradise Apple 

 stock. 



2. Adapting varieties to adverse soil. Some varieties of Plums 

 are worked on the Peach, which causes them to thrive in a sandy 

 soil. Roses when grafted on Manetti stock tolerate more sandy 

 soils. 



3. Adapting plants to adverse climate. The stock may mature 

 sooner and cause a relatively earlier maturity of the cion, or it may 

 actually impede the flow of sap and thus cause earlier ripening. 

 The Oldenburg and other Russian Apples are used as stocks, because 

 maturing early they cause the complete ripening of the wood of the 



* Baltet, Charles. The Art of Grafting and Budding, p. 2. 



t It would seem that Baltet might have included dioecious as well as monoecious. Mo- 

 noecious plants have flowers bearing only one sex, but both kinds of flowers, on one 

 plant; dioecious plants have the separate sexes on different plants. This object also 

 includes the grafting of pollinizers upon self-sterile varieties. 



J From Garden and Forest, Feb. 26, 1890. The above excerpt from this paper is much 

 changed, but the main facts are found in the article cited. 



