LETTER VIII. 



75 



contact with the ground, threw out fibres, which took 

 root separately. And at the time it was examined by 

 my friend, some years after the accident, this branch, 

 which had assumed a tolerably erect attitude, was in 

 the course of establishing for itself an independent 

 footing, and of growing up into a tree, amid the decay 

 and ruin of its prostrate and dead parent. 



12. It is onlv necessary further to advert to the 

 processes of grafting, budding, and layering. These 

 processes seem to me to furnish unequivocal evidence 

 that the allegations made as to the annual growths on 

 trees are well-founded, and indeed to be themselves 

 explicable only on the principle of my theory. From 

 the yearling bud taken from one kind of tree and duly 

 grafted on another of the same natural family, though 

 of a different species, we get the first year a growth, 

 and in the course of years a tree, exactly similar to 

 the tree and to the other growths of the tree whence 

 it was taken. And the tree thus derived, though 

 growing on another, preserves nevertheless its own 

 distinctive character, has its own peculiar leaves and 

 blossom, produces its own pecuhar fruit, and is in 

 every respect as perfect a tree as if it had been raised 

 from a seed, and had grown up independently from 

 the soil. 



13. Nor is it unimportant to observe, as exemphfied 

 in our various fruit-trees, that any particular variety 

 may be in this way not only multiphed indefinitely, 



