188 FIELD, FOREST AND FARM 



pears, quinces, berries of the mountain ash, medlars, 

 and service-berries. These are very odd instances, 

 certainly, but of no practical interest. It would be 

 a waste of time to dwell longer on them did they not 

 teach a useful lesson. They demonstrate that how- 

 ever many fresh grafts are added to a tree, the new- 

 comers exert no influence outside their own sphere. 

 Whether offshoots of the tree itself or aliens, the 

 grafts develop, blossom, and fructify, each after its 

 own kind, without contracting any of its neighbor's 

 habits. Among the curious phenomena observed in 

 this artificial juxtaposition of mutually independent 

 grafts, we will mention a pear-tree on which were 

 represented, by means of grafting, all the different 

 varieties of cultivated pears. Sour or sweet, dry 

 or juicy, large or small, green or bright-colored, 

 round or long, hard or mellow, each and all ripened 

 on the same tree and grew again year after year with- 

 out change, faithful to the specific character, not of 

 the supporting tree, but of the various grafts planted 

 on this common stock. 



' ' The mere bringing together of analagous plants 

 does not suffice for the success of the operation of 

 grafting; there must be a considerable extent of 

 contact between those parts of the graft and the 

 stock that have the most vitality and are conse- 

 quently best fitted to coalesce. This contact should 

 be in the inner layers of the bark and in the seat 

 of plant-growth situated between the wood and the 

 bark. The vital activity of the plant, in fact, resides 

 especially in this region. It is between the wood 



