258 AN IMPROVED METHOD OF RAISING EARLY POTATOES. 



Some potatoes of rather large size and early habit were placed in such 

 situations that the fibrous roots only of the plants entered into, or were 

 in contact with, the soil. Thus circumstanced, an abundant blossom 

 appeared, and seeds would have been produced ; but both the blossoms, 

 and the runners which would have formed young tubers, were alike 

 removed. 



The old tubers, though fully exposed to the sun and air, still retained 

 life, and were obviously supplied with moisture by the stems, which had 

 sprung from them ; and the result was ultimately just what I had 

 anticipated. The plants, after many frustrated efforts to produce 

 blossoms and tubers upon every part of their branches, at last threw 

 their sap back into the old tubers ; and a numerous crop of young tubers 

 was suspended from the buds, or eyes, of the old. This did not occur till 

 autumn ; and therefore the vital union must have subsisted through the 

 whole summer ; and I entertain but very little doubt, that such a union 

 subsists under ordinary circumstances, till almost the whole of the soluble 

 and organisable matter of the old tubers has been absorbed by the new. 

 To what extent this occurs is, however, a point of little consequence : the 

 important fact of the crop being increased by the employment of large 

 sets has been proved by accurate experiments, in many successive seasons. 



XLVIL ON GRAFTING THE VINE. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, September 18th, 1821.] 



THE practice of grafting the vine appears to be very ancient ; for it is 

 mentioned both by Cato and Columella* in a way which shows that it 

 was common in the vineyards of Italy at the period in which they wrote. 

 It must, consequently, have been an operation of easy execution, though it 

 is rarely seen to succeed well in the hands of the modern gardener ; who 

 is, nevertheless, certainly much better provided with instruments, and 

 can scarcely be supposed to be inferior in skill or science to the culti- 

 vators of that period. It is therefore probable, that the ancients were 

 acquainted with some mode of operating, of which the modern gardener 

 is ignorant. It is well known that the ancients, in propagating the vine, 

 employed cuttings, which consisted partly of year- old, and partly of two- 

 year-old wood ; and the modern gardener, in deviating from this mode 

 of practice, has adopted one which does not possess a single advantage, 



* Cato, cap. 42. Columella, lib. IV. c. 29. 



