48 GARDENING FOE PLEASURE. 



sourest crab apple, and insert it into a branch of the 

 sweetest apple tree you can find, and the shoot which 

 grows from the crab apple bud will ever remain a crab, 

 and will in no way be affected by the sweet apple stock 

 on which it is growing. Or if the operation is reversed, 

 and the sweet apple is budded or grafted on the sour, 

 the result will be the same ; its individuality will be in 

 no way changed, it will be identical with the variety 

 from which it was taken. 



Still further to illustrate this matter of budding or 

 grafting, you may take a rose-bush having any number 

 of shoots, it makes no difference whether one or a hun- 

 dred ; on each shoot you may bud a distinct variety of 

 Rose, of all the colors, forms or odors embraced in the 

 Roses, and each one will hold its distinct characteristic 

 of color, form, or fragrance, be it crimson, white, pink, 

 or yellow in color, double or single in form, or of tea or 

 other odor. Or you may take a young seedling apple 

 tree, insert a bud of another into it, then after that bud 

 has made a growth, bud still another variety into that, 

 and so on as many as is desired, rub of all shoots in the 

 stem that start below, and the variety last budded will 

 hold its individuality unchanged, no matter though the 

 life-sustaining sap flows through the cells of several dif- 

 ferent kinds. You may mark the space occupied by each 

 of the varieties, and cut back to any particular variety, 

 and the fruit that will be produced by that part, which will 

 then be the top, will hold its character without change. 

 What is true of roses and apples, is of course equally 

 true of whatever plant that can be grafted or budded. 



The stock does not in any manner affect the individu- 

 ality of the graft, and I supposed that this was one of 

 the generally accepted axioms of horticulture, but in a 

 conversation not long ago with a gentleman whose opin- 

 ion is entitled to consideration, I found him inclined to 

 believe that there were some few exceptions to what was 



