122 



taking up tlie vessels in different parts, Mr. Knight 

 was perfectly satisfied that the ascending and de- 

 scending fluids are carried to every part of the tree. 

 {Knight on the Apple, 85). 



Boot-grafting is easily practised, and it has the 

 very strong recommendation of having as its advocate 

 Mr. Beaton, the very excellent gardener of Sir W. 

 Middle ton, at Shrubland Park, near Ipswich. He 

 observes, that Mr. Knight was the first who ascertained 

 the possibility of grafting scions on pieces of the roots 

 of the same or some allied species with success. 

 When he made his experiments on this subject known 

 to the Horticultural Society some thirty years since, 

 it was looked on merely as an interesting fact in vege- 

 table physiology. Subsequently, however, the prac- 

 tice began to be extensively employed in the nurseries 

 to multiply rare plants, or such as are difficult to pro- 

 pagate by the more ordinary means, such as Combre- 

 tum purpureum and so forth. Mere propagation of 

 rare species is, however, by no means the only object 

 to which this mode of grafting can be advantageously 

 applied ; another and a still more important one is, 

 that by its means we gain one grand step in preventing 

 canker in fruit-trees — perhaps the surest step of any 

 that has yet been thought of. "We all know that cer- 

 tain plants prefer particular soils and dislike others, 

 but no one can tell the reason. When a young fruit- 

 tree shews symptoms of premature decay or canker. 



