GALLESIO'S TREATISE ON THE CITIU'S FAMILY. 



bushy, and hence the foliage is better nourishcc 

 tfind more beautiful, and its fruits, which are less 

 abundant, are of greater si/e and more agreeable 

 flavor. 



Another circumstance also influences, perhaps 

 the greater elaboration of fruit in the grafted 

 tree. 



The graft unites a branch of one variety to a 

 stock of another variety. This union, which i 

 not natural, forms always a kind of knot at the 

 point of insertion, which may check the rapidity 

 of the flow of sap ; and we know that on account 

 of this slowness in the current of the sap, buds fed 

 by it produce fruit rather than branches. 



A tree which bears but little may be rendered 

 fruitful by rubbing off the bark at its foot. The 

 cultivators of vineyards bend the vines or break 

 them a little at the place where they wish the 

 fructification to commence ; and I have several 

 times obtained oranges of extraordinary size by 

 twisting the branch which bore them. 



All these means have been long known to cul- 

 tivators, and it is no longer doubtful that this 

 effect is due only to the great slowness in the 

 flow of the sap, which thus influences the quan- 

 tity and quality of the fruit. 



But such are the limits which nature has fixed 

 to the influence of the graft upon vegetables. It 

 facilitates or improves their development, but 

 never changes or modifies their forms, juices, or 

 colors. Never has the wild pear been trans- 

 formed by the graft into the butter pear, nor the 

 butter pear into the muscat pear ; never has the 

 bitter orange been so improved as to lose its bit- 

 terness by grafting. I have a stock of this species 

 which I have grafted three times upon itself, graft 

 upon graft, but it gives me only larger fruit, differ- 

 ing in no other way from that of the plant which 

 furnished the bud. 



The graft is nothing more than a kind of slip. 

 It transfers the bud of one plant to the stern or 

 body of another ; and this bud, which encloses 

 within itself the rudiments of the vegetables des- 

 tined to grow from it, draws from the stock on 

 which it is placed the juices necessary for its nour- 

 ishment in the same manner as the slip draws them 

 directly from the earth. It is possible that, from 

 the passage which these juices are forced to make 

 through the roots and trunk of the plant, they 

 reach the fibres of the bud more elaborate*} than 

 if drawn more directly from the soil ; but what- 

 ever may be their condition when they enter the 

 bud, they are there always modified by its organs 

 as are those elements drawn from the air, and as 

 those taken from the earth would be, if it were 

 placed with its own roots directly in the soil. 



Experience has confirmed these principles, and 

 it is now established that the graft is useful only 

 in perpetuating species or varieties without im- 

 proving them. I have made constant observa- 

 tions on this subject during more than fifteen 

 years, by keeping beside the grafted plant the 

 plant which furnished the bud. I have grafted 

 oranges upon lemons and lemons upon oranges. 

 I have grafted sweet oranges upon bitter oranges 

 and bitter oranges upon sweet ones ; apricots on 

 prunes and peaches upon apricots ; and I never 

 could recognize the least difference between the 

 fruits given by the plant which furnished the 

 graft and those of the plant which received it. 

 I never obtained from these operations anv other 



result than that of preserving rare varieties, 

 which could not be propagated by seed, for the 

 double reason that they but rarely contained 

 any, and that when they did, we could obtain 

 from them usually only degenerated varieties. 



The theoretic principles which prove the in- 

 sufficiency of the stock and of the sap to effect 

 changes in the product of the graft, can not be 

 equally applied to those remarkable grafts formed 

 by the union of two or three buds, the manner 

 of which occurrence is described in the works of 

 ancient writers upon agriculture, and to which it 

 is still pretended mixed species arc due, such as 

 the orange de buarrerie, which partakes of the 

 character of the orange, the lemon, and the citron. 



We have great difficulty in conceiving how two 

 half buds, applied the one upon the other, can 

 amalgamate and form one single bud par- 

 taking of the nature of the two. I would not 

 dare cite my experience to prove that two dif- 

 ferent buds united together inserted upon an 

 analogous stock, or even placed in the earth, 

 perish if too much mutilated, or develop, each 

 one separately, its scion. 



The ill success of these operations would be on- 

 ly a negative proof, which could not destroy the 

 facts if any existed ; but I challenge the gardeners 

 to cite me an example, supported by impartial 

 observations, whose exactness they can guaran- 

 tee. Moreover, if in presenting me such an ex- 

 ample they offer me only such individuals as 

 those I possess, and such as I have seen in 

 Liguria, in Tuscany, and such as are known in 

 France under the name of orange de Mzarrcrie, I 

 would venture to contradict them respecting it. 



The anatomy of the tissue of these individuals 

 would furnish me an irresistible argument. This 

 tissue does not present traces of three buds to 

 whose unions the hybrid is pretended to be due. 

 It shows only a branch which bears at one time, 

 but isolated under distinct leaves, buds of three 

 species and buds which give mixed fruit, without, 

 however, enabling us to recognize in these spe : 

 cies of embryos anything announcing this mix- 

 ture. 



I will not speak of those imaginary grafts by . 

 which some have pretended to make branches 

 of the fig, grape, rose, and jasmine grow on 

 orange and lemon stocks. I have several times 

 seen such phenomena in Tuscany and Milan, 

 and confess to have been deceived by them ; but 

 having been a long time cheated by those gar- 

 deners, who sold at exorbitant prices ridicuTous 

 recipes for obtaining these extraordinary unions, 

 and after having lost, by making trial of them, 

 several orange stocks, I finally succeeded in dis- 

 covering the fraud, and am convinced that these 

 lietcrogenous unions do not exist in nature. I 

 bought a vase containing an orange stock on 

 which a fig scion seemed to be grafted. As soon 

 as 1 got possession of it I opened the stock' where 

 the fig branch was inserted, and discovered that 

 this stock was hollowed out inside, and that 

 through this hole in the interior the would-be 

 ojraft found its way to the soil, thus living upon 

 ts own root instead of that of the orange tree. 

 This discovery completed my conviction that a 

 difference really exists in the organs of different 

 vegetables as well as in the organs of animals, 

 ind that from this difference of organization the 

 .lifference of products results. I know that in 



