122 THEORY OP BUDDING. 



lion. This might lead to one mode of engrafting, 

 called inosculation; and that, again, to the inser- 

 tion of a twig, at once dissevered from the parent 

 tree, and set green into the sap of another, as in 

 the common artificial process. There would be the 

 same boldness of conjecture in this experiment as 

 in one that has of late been successfully performed 

 in the human body. The growing together of two 

 fingers, as by inosculation, above described, is the 

 first discovered fact; and from the knowledge of 

 this, a finger, which had been wholly cut off, was 

 lifted from the ground, carried some distance to 

 the chirurgeon, and, being artfully replaced, ad- 

 hered, and became fit for all its wonted functions. 

 After the success of grafting, there remained one 

 further trial of nature as to the freedoms which she 

 will sanction namely, the insertion of a bud in- 

 stead of a twig ; and the intimation of her willing- 

 ness to give countenance to this might be gathered 

 from the fact, that though a graft die away from 

 the top downwards to the last bud, there is no 

 further difference as to the effect than a retarda- 

 tion caused by the loss of so much wood; and there- 

 fore it might be conjectured, that a thing so small 

 as a single bud would be sufficient to answer the 

 expectations of the engrafter. Thus budding and 

 grafting are virtually the same, the one being more 

 wonderful only in this, that the entire change of 

 character produced on the future tree by a single 

 bud is the result of means more slender and appar- 

 ently more inadequate. 



