62 PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING AND BUDDING. 



standard high, on the common Mountain -Ash (Pyrus aucu- 

 paria), had in four separate cases thrown out from the stock 

 variegated shoots one from the very base close to the ground, 

 and the others about half-way up, about three or four feet from 

 the base. The variegation was whiter than that of the graft, and 

 seemed to be first developed along the midrib of the leaflets, 

 some leaves being only affected in this way, while others had 

 the colour also developed along the course of the main veins. 

 In Blair's ' Botanick Essays' (1720), p. 386, that author 

 observes : " 'Tis by the descent of the particles from the graft, 

 and their reascent, that the variegations appear in the other 

 parts of the shrub ; a pregnant example of which happened to 

 Mr Brigman, gardener at Hertford, who engrafting a Hedge- 

 hog slip into a Holly, the graft died, but another variegation 

 afterwards appeared below it, and upon the same stock." So 

 the old " gardeners " knew something of our present difficult 

 questions, and were perhaps just as near their right solution as 

 we are now. Among modern instances of " inoculation " we 

 may mention the golden-blotched Abutilon Thompsoni, which 

 often infects with its variation the green-leaved A. striatum on 

 which it is worked as a stock \ while a Mr Fairchfld observed 

 exactly the same thing in the case of a golden-blotched Passion- 

 flower which had been budded or " inoculated " into a green- 

 leaved stock as long ago as 1722. (See 'Gardeners' Chronicle,' 

 1871, p. noo.) 



In the 'Revue Horticole,' vol. for 1873, a curious state- 

 ment is made, to the effect that an Italian horticulturist, M. 

 Zenone- Zen, has contributed a paper to the Royal Institution 

 of Venice, in which he declares that, after long study and 

 experiment, he has succeeded in producing varieties of Roses 

 by budding in a certain manner. Two well-known botanists 

 were appointed to see M. Zen's mode of budding, but they 

 could not detect anything unusual in his manipulations ; not- 

 withstanding which, when the plants operated on flowered, the 

 blooms were different in form, size, and colour, from the varieties 

 whence the buds had been taken, and these new characteristics 

 become intensified with the age and vigour of the plant. The 

 varieties produced are said to be permanent, and may be per- 

 petuated by budding, layering, or grafting in the usual manner; 

 and if the variety becomes lost, it can be reproduced by per- 

 forming the original operation of budding again in M. Zen's 

 secret manner, or under like conditions. Is this true ? Before 

 we condemn this as a canard, we must remember the curious 

 effects which are not unfrequently obtained when variegated 

 Hollies, Passifloras, Jasmine, Golden-leaved Laburnum, Abuti- 



