9O GRAFTAGE. 



union. The grain was perfectly straight and bright 

 through the crown. Every internal evidence of a graft 

 had disappeared. 



So far as the strength of a good union is concerned, all 

 fruit growers know that trees rarely break where they are 

 grafted. In a certain seedling orchard, many hundreds of 

 grafts were set in the tops of the trees, often far out on 

 large limbs ; and yet, with all the breaking of the trees by 

 ice, storms and loads of fruit, a well-established union has 

 not been known to break away. The strength of the 

 union was tested in a different way. Two "stubs" were 

 cut from an old and rather weak apple tree which had been 

 cleft-grafted in the spring of 1889. These stubs were 

 sawed up into cross-sections less than an, inch thick, and 

 each section, therefore, had a portion of foreign wood 

 grown into either side of it. These sections were now 

 placed on a furnace and kept very hot for two days, in 

 order to determine how they would check in seasoning, 

 for it is evident that the checks occur in the weakest 

 points. But in no case was there a check in the amalga- 

 mated tissue, showing that it was really an element of 

 physical strength to the plant. A similar test was made 

 with yearling mulberry grafts, and with similar results; 

 and this case is particularly interesting because there 

 were three species engrafted the common Russian mul- 

 berry, Morus rubra, and M. Japonica. 



From all these considerations, it is evident that, ad- 

 mitting that hundreds of poor unions occur, there is no 

 necessary reason why a graft should be a point of physical 

 weakness, and that the statement that "grafted plants of 

 all kinds are open to all sorts of accidents and disaster," 

 is not true. 



b. Are grafted plants less virile that is, less strong, 

 vigorous, hardy, shorter-lived than others? It is evident 

 that a poor union or an uncongenial stock will make the 

 resulting plant weak, and this is a further proof that in- 

 discriminate graftage is to be discouraged. But these 



