338 



HARDY FRUIT GARDEN. 



stantly practised with roses, camellias, apples, 

 &c. Species of the same genera are also fre- 

 quently united. The peach may be grafted on 

 the almond, the apricot on the plum, the plum 

 on the cherry, and the pavia on the horse-chest- 

 nut ; but the operation will not succeed between 

 the horse-chestnut and the almond. Genera of 

 the same natural order also may sometimes be 

 united : thus, the pear may be grafted on the 

 quince, or on the thorn, or on the amelanchier, 

 all of these belonging to the natural order of 

 Rosacese. The lilac is said to adhere to the ash 

 and to PMllyrea latifolia; the olive to the ash ; 

 the chionanthus to the ash and lilac — all belong- 

 ing to the natural order Oleacese. The chest- 

 nut may be grafted on the oak, in the family 

 Amentiferse ; and Bignonia radicans on Catapala, 

 in Bignoniacese. There are marked instances 

 of plants which seem to be allied, and yet which 

 cannot be grafted on each other. Thus chest- 

 nuts will not graft on beeches, nor apples on 

 pears. As regards the persistence of leaves, it 

 is generally necessary that the plants should 

 correspond ; but to this there are exceptions. 

 Some evergreens can be grafted on deciduous 

 plants. Prunus laurocerasus and P. lusitanica 

 (the Portugal and common laurel), both ever- 

 greens, live for some time grafted on the bird- 

 cherry, and are less sensible to cold than those 

 growing on their own roots. Eriobotrya japo- 

 nica and E. glabra, also evergreens, live for a 

 very long time grafted on the hawthorn. The 

 cedar of Lebanon, grafted on the common larch, 

 lives upwards of ten years, but it remains 

 stunted and dwarf." The instances of parasitic 

 plants, like the loranthus, mistletoe, &c, adher- 

 ing to other plants of widely different genera, 

 cannot be fairly stated as exceptions, as the 

 process by which they adhere is not common 

 grafting. " The seeds, and not the buds or 

 slips, are applied to the stems on which they 

 grow, and certain root-like processes are sent in- 

 wards." Mr Beaton, Mr Moss, and others, have 

 stated that buds or slips of mistletoe have been 

 made to adhere. 



Grafting has the effect of causing some plants 

 to become more hardy and others more tender, 

 and also of causing plants to produce their 

 flowers and fruit at an earlier period of life than 

 were they at once originated from seed ; and 

 Knight thought that the fruit upon grafted trees 

 ripened earlier in the season than on trees of 

 the same age, and of the same kind, not grafted, 

 or even grafted upon stocks of their own 

 species ; and that the growth and vigour of a 

 tree, and its power to produce successive heavy 

 crops, are diminished apparently by the stagna- 

 tion in the branches and stock of a portion of 

 that sap, which in a tree growing upon its own 

 stem, or upon a stock of its own species, would 

 descend to nourish and promote the extension 

 of the roots. When the stock is by nature 

 weaker than the scion, or incapable of supplying 

 it with as great an amount of sap as if the sup- 

 ply was derived from its own roots, without 

 any such interruption, then the tree grafted 

 will be limited in the period of its existence in 

 proportion to the scanty supply of sap; and 

 on the other hand, the scion of a weakly variety 



will gain strength and increased longevity 

 when worked upon a stock capable of sup- 

 plying it with as much or a greater quantity of 

 sap than its roots would supply. But much of 

 all this depends on the accuracy of the opera- 

 tion, for a weakly scion may be inaccurately 

 fitted to a stronger stock, and hence an inter- 

 ruption to the ascent of the sap will take place, 

 and consequences directly opposite to what is 

 anticipated are certain to ensue. It is, there- 

 fore, probable that it is more owing to the 

 bungling way in which the operation is per- 

 formed that grafted plants and trees so fre- 

 quently die a year or two after they have been 

 grafted, and that some others, although they 

 may continue living for a greater number of 

 years, fail in assuming a robust and healthy ap- 

 pearance. The nature of the sap, in some trees, 

 may have its share in this ; and it is probable 

 that to either or both of these may be attributed 

 the repeated failures in securing healthy and 

 robust young trees in the order Coniferse. 



Monocotyledonous plants were long con- 

 sidered as incapable of being grafted. Signor 

 Calderini of Milan published, in the " Annales 

 des Sciences Naturelles," an account of some 

 experiments he made on grasses of different 

 species. This experiment was made with a 

 view to improve the vigour of delicate and 

 tender varieties, by grafting them on more 

 robust stocks ; and in this he succeeded. The 

 modus operandi was [from having observed that 

 these plants have at each knot a shoot enclosed 

 in the sheath of the leaf, which can be easily 

 drawn out while the plant is young. He intro- 

 duced some of these into plants of the same 

 species, having previously removed their young 

 shoots, and found that half of them succeeded. 

 The experiment, we fear, goes no further than 

 to resolve a physiological problem, which is in 

 itself sufficiently interesting : the practical ad- 

 vantage appears to us to be very slight. 



§ 4. — PROPAGATION BY BUDDING. 



Budding is the operation of transferring the 

 buds of one tree to the branches of another; 

 and its use is the propagation of plants which 

 could not be effected at all, or much less conve- 

 niently, by the other modes of extension, such 

 as striking by cuttings, grafting, &c, as well as 

 multiplying a species or variety more expedi- 

 tiously than by either of the other modes of 

 propagation — as one bud in this case is sufficient 

 in itself to form the future plant, when planted 

 on the alburnum of another of the same or very 

 nearly allied species, while several buds are re- 

 quired in all other methods of propagation. In 

 transferring the bud of one plant to the wood of 

 another, they become vitally united together, 

 as in the case of grafting, which can only be 

 regarded as budding in another form. This 

 process is chiefly employed on woody plants 

 and trees, although it is sometimes performed 

 upon herbaceous plants also, but never on an- 

 nuals. The varieties of budding are numerous, 

 — much more so than useful. Professor Thouin 

 enumerates twenty-three methods by which the 

 operation is performed ; and it is probable that 



