OF PROPAGATION BY GEAFTING. 225 



culty in procuring a suitable stock, pieces of the roots 

 of the plant to be multiplied are often taken as a sub- 

 stitute, and they answer the purpose perfectly well ; 

 for the circumstance which hinders the growth of 

 pieces of a root into young branches is merely their 

 want of buds : if a scion is grafted upon a root, that 

 deficiency is supplied, and the difference bet'veen the 

 internal organisation of a root and a branch is so 

 trifling as to oppose no obstacle to the solid union of 

 the two. 



Mr. Knight was the first to show the possibility of 

 grafting scions upon roots. An account of his me- 

 thod of doing this was given at a very early period 

 of the existence of the Horticultural Society (June, 

 1811), and he at the same time suggested the possibi- 

 lity of the practice being applied to grafting scarce 

 herbaceous plants upon the roots of their commoner 

 congeners ; an operation now commonly practised 

 with the Dahlia, Pseony, and other plants of a similar 

 kind ; and lately a method of multiplying Combre- 

 tum purpureum by similar means has been pointed 

 out in the Proceedings of the Horticultural Society, i. 

 40. 



Mere propagation is, however, by no means the 

 only object of the grafter ; another and still more im- 

 portant one is, to secure a permanent union between 

 the scion and stock, so that the new plant may grow 

 as freely and as long as if it were on its own bottom 

 under the most favourable circumstances. If this is 

 not attended to, the hopes of the cultivator will be 

 frustrated by the early death of his plant. 

 10* 



