ABOUT GRAFTING AND BUDDING. 73 



the leaves. I consider it most unfortunate for Mr. Dar- 

 win to have advanced the peculiarity of variegated leaves, 

 as bearing on his theory of " graft hybrids." That leaf 

 variegation is indicative of disease is manifest from many 

 facts. It is quite a common thing to find a shoot sent 

 out by the silver-leaved or variegated Geraniums that is 

 pure white in stem and leaves, without a particle of green, 

 or such golden variegated kinds of Geraniums as "Mrs. 

 Pollock" will send out a pure yellow shoot ; but all efforts 

 to make plants of such shoots will fail. They may feebly 

 root as cuttings, or they may be grafted on a green-leaved, 

 healthy stock long enough to drag out a few weeks of 

 existence, but the disease is here thoroughly established, 

 and all attempts to propagate these entirely abnormal 

 growths completely fail. It has been claimed that the 

 Duchescse d'Angouleme and other pears are much better 

 flavored when grafted on the quince than on the pear 

 stock, and these are quoted as examples of the influence 

 of the stock on the graft; but to me this seems capable of 

 another explanation. 



We know that the pear stock is a vigorous and ram- 

 pant grower as compared with the quince, and may it not 

 be that this vigor of growth in the tree impairs the flavor 

 of the fruit in some varieties, just as we find the flavor of 

 fruits impaired when grown in too rich soil ? The effect 

 of soil upon quality is particularly marked in melons. I 

 remember that I once grew a field of three acres of Nutmeg 

 melons. One half of the patch was rich bottom land, and 

 the other portion was a rather poor hillside. The fruit pro- 

 duced on the bottom land was much larger, but so different 

 from and inferior in flavor to those on the hillside that no 

 one would have recognized the two as being of the same 

 variety. Grapes grown on a shaly hillside are better fla- 

 vored than on a rich alluvial deposit. The same, though 

 in a less marked degree, probably occurs in other fruits 

 under similar conditions. For these reasons I believe 



