322 



HARDY FEUIT GARDEN. 



in the progeny. Gentlemen eminent as physio- 

 logists have read nature's laws in these matters 

 a little differently from what my own humble 

 experience has taught me, and assigned to the 

 progeny the constitution and general aspect of 

 the one parent, while they gave the inflorescence 

 and fruit to the other. I have crossed and in- 

 verted the cross, and can venture to give no 

 evidence on the point, except, perhaps, as to 

 constitution, to which the seed-bearer, I think, 

 contributes most, A weU-managed hybrid should 

 and win blend both parents into a distinct inter- 

 mediate, insomuch so as to produce often what 

 might pass for a new species. If the leaning be 

 to one more than another, it is probably to the 

 female, though this will not always be the case. 



" Again, it is asserted that a proper hybrid — 

 i. e., one species which is crossed with another 

 species, which is separate and distinct from it — 

 will produce no fertile seeds. This does not 

 accord with my obseiTations. Dr Lindley has 

 remarked very justly (' Theory of Horticulture,' 

 p. 69), ' But facts prove that undoubted hybrids 

 7)iay be fertile.' My hybrid, Veronica Balfour- 

 iana (an intermediate between V. saxatilis and 

 V. fruticitlosa), seeds, I would say, more abun- 

 dantly than either parent; and the progeny from 

 its self-sown seeds I find to be of various shades of 

 blue, violet, and red, rising in my garden, some 

 having actually lai-ger, finer-, and higher-coloui-ed 

 blooms than the parent bearing the seed ; and I 

 am familiar with the same result in other things. 

 Yet I am far from asserting fertility in the pro- 

 duce between two members of allied but distinct 

 genera — such, for example, as in the Brianthus, 

 which I have found to be unproductive, whether 

 employed as the male or female parent. As above 

 conjectured, its parents were far too remote in 

 nature's own arrangement. The hybridist has a 

 field before him ever suggestive of new modes of 

 acting. He may try, as I have done, what may be 

 effected under various tinted glass. My persua- 

 sion is, that I effected from a pale yellow a pure 

 wAJte-grounded calceolaria, by placing the plants 

 under blue-shaded glass, by which the sun's rays 

 were much subdued. He may also apply chemi- 

 cal solutions to plants with ripening seeds. Nature, 

 in producing, as it sometimes does, plants with 

 blooms of colours opposite to those of the parent, 

 must be governed by some law. Why may not 

 this law be found out? For example, under 

 what influences was the first white fuchsia, the 

 F. Venus Victrix, produced, the purest yet of 

 all the race, and the source from which aU the 

 whites have been derived ? 



" While I have necessarily confined the above 

 remarks to things proper to the flower-garden, 

 !i. wide and still more important field lies be- 

 yond. The late lamented Mr Knight of Down- 

 town did much in this way to improve our 

 garden fruits and other esculents, and with a 

 success that none else — so far as I am aware — 

 has since attained. Why should not these efforts 

 be extended to the improvement of agricultural 

 as well as horticultural productions ? Why not 

 caiTy them int^ field and forest, to the creation 

 of new, moi-e useful, and more elegant forms ? 

 Nature is boundless, and its objects are endless, 

 and this subject, of all others connected with 



plants, the most engrossing and exciting. Rich 

 results await the intelligent experimenter ; but 

 I would advise none to embark in the pursuit 

 who has not sufficient leisure to devote to it, 

 and, as I said before, who is not possessed of 

 indomitable patience, watchfulness, and perse- 

 verance, with a fixed determination not to be 

 fretted or discouraged by frequent failures. 

 "Maryfield, Jvme 1853. I. A. ' 



§ 3. — PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 



The art of grafting is so ancient, that anything 

 connected with its origin is lost in the obscurity 

 of ages. Theophrastus and other Greek authors 

 speak of grafting as if it had been well known 

 in their day ; and Varro, a Roman writer, no- 

 tices upwards of twenty modes as practised in 

 his time. The late Professor Thouin enumerates 

 above forty methods ; and M. Louis Noisette 

 some years ago published a description, with 

 figures, of one hundred and thirty-seven. The 

 most probable conjecture as to the origin of that 

 variety of it known as inarching, is the acciden- 

 tal meeting of two branches from neighbouring 

 trees, which, first by friction against each other 

 till the bark of both branches became displaced, 

 and afterwards by uniting, formed so perfect a 

 junction, that when either was separated from 

 its fellow, it became supported by the other. 

 Of the origin of grafting proper, as well as of 

 budding, we know little or nothing. 



We have stated aboye that the varieties of 

 grafting are very numerous. In this country 

 these are divided into what may be called three 

 distinct species — namely, grafting, budding, and 

 inarching ; while on the Continent no such dis- 

 tinction is observed. The French, for example, 

 have no proper word to represent either, but 

 use the general term graffe for all of them. 

 Hence, graffes par gemmes — grafting by buds, or 

 budding, &c. 



The theory of grafting has been explained by 

 DecandoUe, in his "Physiologie V^g^tale ;" by 

 Mr G. Lindley, in " Guide to the Orchard ;" 

 Keith, in "Physiol. Botany;" Knight, Loudon, 

 and others. On this subject the former says : 

 " The shoots springing from the buds of the 

 scion are united to the stock by the young 

 growing alburnum, and once united, they deter- 

 mine the ascent of the sap rising from the stock ; 

 and they elaborate a true or proper juice, which 

 appears evidently to reaseeud in the inner bark. 

 This sap appears to be sufficiently homogeneous, 

 in plants of the same family, to be, in courae of 

 its passage, absorbed by the growing cellules 

 near which it passes, and each cellule elaborates 

 it according to its nature. The cellules of the 

 alburnum of the plum elaborate the coloured 

 wood of the plum ; those of the alburnum of the 

 almond, the coloured wood of the almond. If the 

 descending sap has only an incomplete analogy 

 with the wants of the stock, the latter does not 

 thrive, though the organic union between it and 

 the scion may have taken place ; and if the ana- 

 logy between the alburnum of the scion and 

 that of the stock is wanting, the organic union 

 does not operate ; and as the scion cannot absorb 



