182 



LETTERS ON TREES. 



really natural^ in the same ratio will the wood and 

 the bark formed by it be less perfectly developed and 

 less thoroughly matured than is requisite for its full 

 vigour and permanency as a tree. Its wood will be 

 more perishable, and its bark less defensive ; and 

 therefore external influences will the sooner and the 

 more effectually act upon it to its destruction. This I 

 believe to be the true explanation of the comparatively 

 early decay of some or many of our fruit-trees, and of 

 the observation founded on the occurrence by Dr 

 Carpenter — an observation, however, which is inappli- 

 cable, as a general fact at least, to the Willow, the 

 Elm, and to most, if not to all of our forest-trees that 

 admit of being propagated from grafts or buds. 



9. In illustration of the distinction which he draws 

 between the seed and the bud, Dr Carpenter makes 

 another observation which seems to me not only mis- 

 applied, but detrimental to his own argument. If 

 the individuality of leaf-buds be maintained, because 

 they will continue to exist as grafts, the same attri- 

 bute ought to be allowed to parts of animals, e.g. teeth, 

 &c., which have been removed from one animal and 

 implanted in another, and which have formed new 

 attachments to the latter, and have continued to 

 grow."* To this, it seems a sufficient answer to say, 

 that the parts which he specifies have none of the 

 attributes of the bud. In claiming for the bud the 

 * Op. Cit., p. 902. 



