320 NATURAL GRAFTS. 



sequently, stands astride the stock, to which it attaches itself 

 firmly upon each side, and which it covers completely in a single 

 season. Grafts of the Apple and Pear rarely ever fail in this 

 method of grafting, which may be practised with equal success 

 with young wood in July, as soon as it has become moderately 

 firm and mature. 



What is called herbaceous grafting, depends entirely upon 

 the same principles as common grafting. When two vigorous 

 branches cross each other, and press together so as not to 

 move, they will often form an organic union; if two apples 

 press together, or if two cucumbers are forced to grow side by 

 side in a space so small as to compel them to touch each other 

 firmly, they also wiU grow together; herbaceous grafting is 

 merely an application to practice of this power of soft and 

 cellular parts to unite. 



The theory of grafting is explained by those natural 

 operations in which the process is pecformed by plants them- 

 selves, silently and unobserved ; in which a leaf is grafted to 

 lea'f to form a flower, or leaf-edges to form a fruit. This 

 process, which never misses, which is perfect in its result, and 

 which effects-such a surprising change in the whole appearance 

 of-the parts operated on, takes place when the tissues are in 



» their earliest and most tender condition ; when the substance 

 of the plant is more pulpy than firm, and when the growing 



' parts are compelled to press against each other in consequence 

 of the narrow space in which they lie. It is clearly therefore 

 the business of the grafter to execute his task also when the 

 tissues are as young as he can work upon ; and at all events 

 before they become hardened by the process of Hgnification. 

 This is really at the -very moment when buds are bursting in 

 the spring. If at that time the naked surface of two young 

 shoots, just lengthening, were brought in contact with sufficient 

 skill, we doubt not that the most perfect possible joiat would 

 be the immediate result. But this practice is opposed in the 

 spring by difficulties which we do not as yet know how to 

 surmount, and therefore recourse is had to parts much older, 

 and yet young enough to form an adhesion ; and as young 

 tissue is continually growing in the inner bark of all branches 



