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CHAPTER XXII. 



OF GRAFTING AND BUDDING. 



Four different ways of Graftings with Observations „**0n using 



the Composition^ instead of Grafting-Clay Of Buddings 



with Observations^ Qfc. 



Grafting is the taking of a shoot from one tree, and 

 inserting it into another, in such a manner as that both may unite 

 closely and become one tree ; this is called, by the antient 

 writers in husbandry and gardening, incision^ to distinguish it 

 from inoculating, or budding, which they call inserere ocidos, 



I have taken a great deal of pains to trace the practice of 

 grafting to its origin ; but without success, as no author that I 

 have perused gives any satisfactory account of it; it is how- 

 ever, allowed by all to be very antient. 



The use of grafting is, to propagate any curious sorts of 

 fruits so as to be certain of the kinds ; which cannot be done 

 by any other method : For, as all the good fruits have been 

 accidently obtained from seeds, so, of the seeds of these, when 

 sown, many will degenerate, and produce such fruit as is not 

 worth the cultivating : But when shoots are taken from such 

 trees as produce good fruit, these will never alter from their 

 kind, whatever be the stock or tree on which they are grafted. 



The principle or philosophy of grafting is somewhat ob- 

 scure ; and, had not accident given the first hint, all our know^ 

 ledge of nature would never have led us to it. The effect is 

 ordinarily attributed to the diversity of the pores or ducts of 

 the graft from those of the stock, which change the figure of 

 the particles of the juices in passing through them to the rest 

 of the tree. 



Mr. Bradley, on occasion of some observations by Agri- 

 cola, suggests something new on this head. The stock grafted 

 on he thinks, is only to be considered as a fund of vegetable 

 matter which is to be filtered through the cion ; and digested^ 

 and brought to maturity, as the time of growth in the vessels 

 of the cion directs. A cion, therefore, of one kind grafted on 



