154 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 214. 



a large circular iron support, of which it has taken advantage, 

 and is now well on toward the roof, blooming every inch of 

 the way. Next season I hope to have two or three plants at 

 the base of this support and expect to see them mount clear 

 to the roof. The Manettia can be increased from seeds, which 

 ripen freely, or from cuttings. 



Acacia Drummondii. — No Acacia can be so easily propagated 

 from cuttings as this one, a very pretty and distinct species 

 from Swan River. This, taken with the fact that it makes a 

 very neat specimen and blooms while small, should make it 

 a close competitor for popular favor with the more common 

 Cytisus racemosus. The leaves, with a very short petiole, 

 bear twin pinnae, with very few obtuse glaucous leaflets. The 

 drooping cylindrical spikes of yellow flowers look very much 

 like the male catkins of a Willow. This, as well as other 

 Acacias, should not be planted in the open soil unless the 

 plants have a well-developed ball of roots. Until that time 

 they should be plunged in pots, where an abundant supply of 

 water at all times can be given. Peaty soil is generally recom- 

 mended as most suitable, but I find these plants are not at all 

 fastidious in this respect. Any good loam will do, free from 

 fresh manure. t n zr 



Wellesley, Mass. ^- D. H. 



Correspondence. 



Grafting. — I. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The interesting paper of Professor Bailey on grafting 

 suggests some experiences corroborative of his judgment that 

 grafting is not a devitalizing process. 



When I bought the farm which I have had since 1871, its 

 former owner showed me a small Pear-tree which he had 

 planted six years before, and which had made no apparent 

 growth. I pruned, fertilized and watched it for several years. 

 In the spring it opened its leaves, it shed them in autumn, but 

 it made no visible growth of wood. I then removed it to a 

 seemingly better position, to see if change might awaken it. 

 Digging it up carefully I could not see either in roots or top 

 any indication that they had increased in size a particle since 

 taken from the nursery. It was a case of complete vital inertia. 

 For nearly ten years longer it stood unchanged. It merely 

 lived, and bore an annual crop of leaves without growth. 

 Some years ago, while top-grafting other trees with the Kieffer 

 Pear, I cut off all the branches of this dormant tree and inserted 

 in their stumps cions of the Kieffer. These were set in April. 

 Every one of them grew, and the next October many of them 

 were over five feet in length. From the date of this grafting 

 this inert Pear-tree has grown vigorously, its trunk has trebled 

 in diameter, its branches spread luxuriantly, and in 1891 it bore 

 a bushel of fine fruit. 



In a Pear-orchard, which I planted in 1872, stood a Bartlett 

 tree some five feet high with a small branched top. Yearly it 

 blossomed, but did not grow. I pulled off the blossoms an- 

 nually to direct its energies to the development of wood, but 

 it failed to do more than blossom and bear a few leaves. To 

 encourage it I let it bear two or three pears ; these were fine 

 fruits. But even this indulgence did not improve its disposi- 

 tion ; it would not grow. In April, 1886, when top-grafting, a 

 neighbor came to learn the art. I had finished my work, but 

 my obstinate little Pear-tree stood handy, so I sawed it off to 

 give my friend a lesson in grafting. He stuck into it a couple 

 of Kieffer cions, and under my instructions completed the job. 

 Those grafts grew strongly ; in a couple of years I cut away 

 one of them, and the other is now ten feet high, and was last 

 year so burdened with fruit as to be in danger of breaking 

 down. 



I could give many other illustrations in Apple and Pear trees 

 of the evident vitilization of the stock by the graft. The Kieffer 

 Pear especially seems as if its vitality will revitalize any Pear- 

 stock on which it may be worked. It shows strong growth on 

 all Pear-stocks, but stronger on some varieties than on others, 

 proving that there is a difference in congeniality of tempera- 

 ment. I have top-grafted the Kieffer on the Bartlett, Clapp, 

 Sheldon, Anjou, Lawrence and many others. On the Sheldon 

 and on the Mount Vernon the union of the cion with the stock 

 is so intimate and complete that it needs close inspection to 

 perceive where the junction is made. In 1891 the top-grafts 

 on all these trees were so loaded with fruit that many of them 

 broke down ; but in no instance did this breakage occur at the 

 point of union. Such has been the case in my Apple-orchard, 

 where nearly every tree was top-grafted after ten years of 

 growth. Here many limbs are broken by last summer's crop, 



but there are no breaks at the junction of stock and cion. This, 

 like a splice, seems to be the strongest part. 



In these top-graftings it has been of interest to note the in- 

 fluence of the stock upon the graft. The Kieffer Pear has 

 characteristics so marked as to be always recognizable, but 

 these are in some degree modified by the habit of growth of 

 the variety on which it is worked. The Kieffer graft grows 

 differently on a Sheldon or a Clapp from what it does on Law- 

 rence or Anjou. It also varies in the quality of the fruit. 

 With me it is much better on the Seckel and on the Shel- 

 don than on any other stocks I have grafted. I once took 

 some well-ripened Kieffer pears, grown on Seckel stocks, to 

 iVlount Holly Fair, and submitted them to the taste of leading 

 horticulturists and fruit experts. They pronounced these 

 Kieffers "among the best pears they had ever tasted." 



Among horticulturists it is a matter of dispute as to whether 

 the stock influences the graft. I know of no systematic ex- 

 periments to decide this question, but I have made many ob- 

 servations. I have been grafting and budding trees and shrubs 

 for fifty years, doing much of this work simply for experiment, 

 and my observations satisfy me that the nature of the stock 

 does influence the nature of the graft. I have trees in my 

 orchard top-grafted with cions taken from one tree — a Red As- 

 trachan — on a neighboring farm. When these gi'afts on my 

 trees bore fruit scarcely any one would believe the apple to be 

 the same as those on the tree from which the grafts were 

 taken. And these same Astrachan grafts on trees of different 

 sorts differ from each other in habit of setting of the fruit and 

 in time of ripening. I have the early Lippincott grafted on 

 trees which were previously Fallawater and Spy. There is a 

 marked difference in size and quality of the Lippincott fruit on 

 these two sorts. I brought grafts from a tree of the Kentucky 

 Jennetting growing on my old farm in Illinois, and with them 

 here top-grafted a Fallawater-tree. The Jennetting here re- 

 tains its habit of not opening its buds until after all other sorts 

 in the orchard have blossomed ; but I can see no similarity in 

 its fruit here to the fruit which the Illinois tree used to bear. 

 The apples look somewhat alike externally, but there is no 

 other resemblance. In grafting the Grape I have seen a 

 marked change produced in the Ives by grafting it on the 

 Concord. It is larger in cluster and berry, and about five days 

 earlier in ripening. 



Vineland, N.J. A. W. Pearsotl. 



Myosotis palustris. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — Near this place the railroad track passes through a 

 piece of moist meadow-land in which a brook takes its rise, 

 and all spring and summer this meadow, as well as the bot- 

 tom of the brook and its sloping banks down to where it 

 flows into Lake Michigan, are a sheet of beautiful blue, the 

 color coming from an abundant growth of the common Euro- 

 pean Forget-me-not, which has been naturalized here. Who- 

 ever has seen a German meadow, the long grass flecked in a 

 close pattern with the lovely blue Vergissmeinnicht and 

 waving in the wind, blending the colors in most pleasing man- 

 ner, or he who has seen this Wisconsin meadow illumined 

 by spring sunshine will carry in his mind a picture never to 

 be effaced. These plants were naturalized more than a gen- 

 eration ago by an intelligent German, Charles Kuehn. 



Nothing is easier than to establish the Forget-me-not. If it is 

 only set where the seed can reach a flowing stream, in a short 

 time it will have spread wherever the waterruns. The only dan- 

 ger to guard against will be the uprooting of the original plants, 

 and it will be well to start them where some friendly hand 

 can protect them. 



Two Rivers, Wis. Chas. L. Mann. 



Baccharis halimifolia in Atlantic County, New Jersey. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The size to which Baccharis halimifolia grows in At- 

 lantic County, New Jersey, is, I think, worthy of nofice. Along 

 the borders of the salt-marshes near Atlantic City I have often 

 found it measuring from three and a half to four inches in 

 diameter three or four feet from the ground, and from ten to 

 twelve feet high. It certainly merits the name Groundsel-tree, 

 as it assumes a tree-like form at least in this locality. Its con- 

 spicuous beauty in the fall of the year proves that it is worthy of 

 cultivation, as has been already noted in Garden and Forest 

 (vol. iv., p. 468). As bearing upon the possibility of its suc- 

 cessful culture away from salt-water, I may state that I have 

 found it as far as fifteen miles inland, and in places where 



