57 



PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING AND BUDDING. 



"You see, sweet maid, we marry 

 A gentle scion to the wildest stock ; 

 x And make conceive a bark of baser kind 

 By bud of nobler race ; this is an art 

 Which does mend nature ; change it rather ; but 

 The art itself is nature." 



SHAKESPEARE. 



" For a long time gardeners, as a rule, refused to believe in the reciprocal action of 

 stock and scion ; but the evidence is becoming too overpowering to allow the matter to 

 remain doubtful. " M. T. MASTERS, F.R.S. 



GRAFTING* is an ancient and well-known art, which consists 

 in removing a portion of one plant the part so removed 

 being technically called the graft or scion and applying it 

 to another rooted plant called the stock, in such a manner 

 that they become united, and fulfil their allotted functions, 

 the scion producing fruit or flowers, while the business of the 

 stock is to supply the requisite quantity of root nutriment from 

 the earth. In point of fact the graft is a cutting which is 

 induced to unite some of its tissues with those of the stock, 

 instead of forming a callus and emitting rootlets, as happens 

 when the cutting is inserted in the earth. It is interesting to 

 note, that while most exogenous plants may be reproduced 

 from grafts, it is nearly impossible to graft a single species 

 of endogenous plant whatever, if we exempt some Aroids. 

 Success in grafting .demands not only considerable dexterity 

 on the part of the operator, but it is highly essential that there 

 be an affinity between the stock and the graft. Of the nature 

 or cause of this affinity, or consanguinity, we know as yet but 

 little ; and botanists that is to say, the mere classifiers, who 

 work by the results of certain laws in nature, without consider- 



* For a valuable and interesting paper on grafting, its consequences and 

 effects, see Card. Chron., 1872, pp. 215, 322, and 360 : see also an intelli- 

 gent paper on this subject by A. Murray, Esq., F.L. S., in Jour. Royal 

 Hort. Soc., 1873, vol. iii. p. 116 ; or 'Garden,' 1873, vol. iii. p. 72 ; and 

 also 'Gardeners' Chronicle,' 1871, pp. 584, 585. 



