346 EFFECTS OF THE GRAFTING AND BUDDING OF TREE*. 



Plants and But ingenious as the idea is, there is not an)' thing, I 



notbe l con£ U confess > that appears to me more fallacious, than the com- 

 pared, parison between the animal and plant ; or that causes more 

 mistakes. The one has action, the other only motion ; the 

 one has volition, the other is a mere machine. It would at 

 first sight be more to the purpose therefore, to compare it 

 to any of our works of this kind, if the plant had not life, 

 which must render every comparison futile. In the infant 

 plant there is some resemblance to an animal ; but it has 

 caused more errours, and more delayed the progress of 

 phytology, than any fashionable idea I am acquainted with. 

 Where find a comparison for that, which is evidently a 

 machine, but one that has life without volition ; that is 

 formed with such ingenuity as to combine, its powers, ex- 

 tract its juices, decompose, and recompose its gasses, and 

 deduce from a combination of the whole new life, and new 

 beings ? Mirbel alone has classed it in a manner worthy of 

 itself. " The vegetable world," (says he,) " is the division 

 between the organised and unorganised parts of creation : 

 it gives life to the unorganised substances of the Earth, 

 changing them into living vegetables, for the support of 

 animal life." 



I am, Sir, 



Your obliged Servant, 



AGNES IBBETSON, 



Cowley Cot, 22J Oct. 



in. 



On the Defects of grafting and budding. 

 By Mrs. Agnes Ibbetson. 



To Mr. NICHOLSON, 

 SIR, 



Important in -*• SHALL now continue my subject. The most important 

 grafting, that part toward making grafting and budding perfectly succeed 

 stock and °graft ^ s ? ^at *' ie wo °ds of the stock and scion should exactly as- v 

 should be similate, and be enabled intimately to connect with each 



other. To prove how very necessary this is to the joining 



of 



