IITFLUENCE OF CION AKD STOCK. 245 



siderable size, to enable them to sustaia a fair or large 

 crop. Continuous propagation from old, mature and 

 productive specimen trees may increase the tendency to 

 a premature old age and decay. Almost any peculiar 

 form of growth, or other characteristic of a variety or 

 species, may be transmitted to the offspring through the 

 part employed in its propagation. "We may not in every 

 instance be able to perpetuate abnormal characteristics 

 at first, but by repeated selections of parts showing a 

 variation from the normal type, we can usually fix and 

 perpetuate almost any peculiar habit or form of plant. 



In selecting parts of herbaceous plants, the same rule 

 holds good as in the ligneous, and we may increase the. 

 floriferous habit by continuous propagating from the 

 flowering stems and branches, until the plant perishes 

 from what may be termed over-exhaustion. 



Influence of Stock on Ciok. — That the stock upon 

 which a cion is set has influence upon its future growth 

 is well known. If it were not so, then the art of propa- 

 gating plants by budding and grafting would be less valu- 

 able than now. 



The stock not only acts as a medium through which the 

 cion obtains sustenance from the earth, but it in a measure 

 imparts its own characteristics to it ; and it is thus we 

 change the giant into a dwarf, the slow growing plant 

 into a rapid one, and many other variations from the 

 natural habits of plants, simply through the influence 

 of the stock on the cion or graft. 



While we may not, in every instance, be able to deter- 

 mine the true cause of certain variations, which may appear 

 to be antagonistic with what we call natural laws, still, for 

 all practical purposes, our knowledge of this subject is 

 sufficient to enable us, in many instances, to so change 

 natural products that their value is increased many fold. 



The common mode of producing dwarf trees is one of 

 the most familiar instances of the influence of the stock 



