PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING AND BUDDING. 63 



Ions, &c., are budded on their greeri-leaved types as stocks. 

 These cases prove that under some circumstances and con- 

 ditions of which, unhappily, we know but little the ,scion 

 influences the stock, and these indications are cropping up 

 every day, if gardeners would but record them. That the 

 stock influences the scion is a better-known truth ; and a series 

 of experiments with scions on a bare stock /. <?., one from 

 which all the leaves and shoots are removed in the usual way 

 and others allowed to bear their own leaves as well as those 

 of the scion, would doubtless teach us much more about this 

 mysterious reciprocal influence, and prove of vast practical 

 importance besides. Do we not rob the stock of a deal of its 

 power to ameliorate the scion, when we denude it of all its own 

 leaves ? We - know also that graft hybrids of undoubted 

 authenticity have been produced, and these show us the possi- 

 bility of M. Zen's assertions being founded on fact, although 

 it is hard at present to believe that such is the case. While 

 we are left in suspense by M. Zen, however, let us not wait 

 idly : there are suggestions in his assertions, and if we dig deep 

 enough we may find gold. 



Mr T. A. Knight was one of the first to point out the 

 variability of the same varieties of fruits when grafted on differ- 

 ent stocks, and in the case of Grapes we have the most ample 

 proof of this fact. Thus at Battle Abbey are rods of Cannon 

 Hall and Muscat of Alexandria worked side by side on the Royal 

 Muscadine stock, and the result is compact well-set bunches far 

 superior to those borne by the same varieties on their own 

 roots, and otherwise in precisely the same conditions. Mr Hill 

 of Keele Hall makes the following remarks in the ' Garden/ 

 vol. iv. p. 334 : " Some years ago we grafted the Styrian 

 or Keele Hall Beurre Pear on the Citron des Carmes, which 

 is one of our earliest summer Pears, and the result is that the 

 Styrian, thus treated, is about three weeks earlier than the same 

 kind on the ordinary Pear stock, and better flavoured." And 

 again, in the same volume, p. 254, another correspondent 

 writing from Merriott, Somersetshire, says : " The Rokeby 

 Pear, taken from a tree worked on the Pear stock, was in every 

 stage of ripening very bad, being dry and mealy ; while the 

 same sort worked on the Quince in the same ground was full 

 of juice, melting, and deliciously flavoured, and was a fortnight 

 earlier." Another instance is furnished by that fine-looking 

 but rather delicate-constitutioned Grape, Golden Champion. 

 This, when grown on its own roots, frequently comes blotched 

 or spotted in the berry, and eventually rots, if not cut when 

 it ripens. This is perhaps the result of its robust growth not 



