74 GARDENING FOR PLEASURE. 



it safe to assert that the preponderance of evidence is 

 against the belief that the stock in any manner affects 

 the graft other than that it may cause it to grow stronger 

 or weaker, just as the stock is strong or weak, and the 

 amount of such influence will be only such as a rich or 

 poor soil would produce. In other words, the ' stock " 

 is only a medium or soil wherein the grafted individual 

 grows, and affects it no more than if it drew its suste- 

 nance direct from the earth : strong, if on a strong stock, 

 as on a fertile soil, and weak, if on a weak stock, as on a 

 sterile soil. 



I believe that the smallest or the greatest of God's 

 creations has a separate and distinct individuality, and 

 that they cannot be blended, except by generation, and 

 that the product of generation, whether in the lowest 

 microscopic germ, or in the highest type, man, has an 

 individuality distinct and separate that it cannot attach 

 to another. 



CHAPTER XV. 

 HOW GRAFTING AND BUDDING ARE DONE. 



AFTER this discussion of general principles, let us come 

 to the practice of grafting and budding. In what has 

 been said, the words have been used as synonyms, and their 

 object is precisely the same to propagate a particular 

 plant upon a rooted plant of another kind. Among 

 fruits we do this because we cannot multiply choice vari- 

 eties by seed or by cuttings. Stocks are raised from seed, 

 which, if allowed to grow and bear, may produce a poor 

 and worthless fruit, or it may be a good kind. To make 

 matters sure, we graft a twig of a kind that we know upon 

 a seedling about which we know nothing. With Camellias, 

 some of the choice kinds, cannot well be propagated 



