50 



GARDENING FOR PLEASURE. 



referred to. He gives a number of instances where the vari- 

 egated Oleander grafted on the plain leaved variety as a 

 stock, imparts the variegation to the stock, or where a yel- 

 low-leaved ash tree, grafted on the common green-leaved 

 variety, produced a blotched or variegated variety. That 

 most of the variegation in the foliage of plants, is due to 

 disease, or at least some disturbance of the regular func- 

 tions of the leaf, there is but little doubt, and it is there- 

 fore but an accidental condition of the individual. Where 

 a variegated plant is budded or grafted upon a healthy 

 subject, the disease is transmitted from the unhealthy 

 bud or graft to the healthy stock in a manner somewhat 

 analogous to innoculation of smallpox virus in man. The 

 character or constitution of the individual is in no way 

 affected in the one case more than in the other. Marked 

 instances in which plain-leaved plants become variegated 

 by being grafted with variegated cions, are afforded by 

 the variegated Abutilons ; but in all such cases it is sim- 

 ply the "blotching" or "disease" of the foliage that 

 occurs, there is no change whatever in the coloring of the 

 flowers or shape of the leaves, the individuality of these 

 remains unchanged. That leaf variegation is indicative 

 of disease, is manifest from another fact. It is quite a 

 common thing to find a shoot sent out by the silver- 

 leaved or variegated Geraniums that is pure white in stem 

 and leaves, not a particle of green, or such golden varie- 

 gated kinds of Geraniums as " Mrs. Pollock "will send 

 out a pure yellow shoot ; but all efforts to make plants of 

 such shoots will fail ; they may feebly root as cuttings, 

 or they may be grafted on a green-leaved, healthy stock 

 long enough to drag out a few weeks of existence, but the 

 disease is here thoroughly established, and all attempts 

 to propagate these entirely abnormal growths completely 

 fail. It has been claimed that the Duchesse d'Angouleme 

 and other pears are much better flavored when grafted on 

 the quince than on the pear stock, and these are quoted 



