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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



nourishment derived through the one connecting branch. For fifteen years 

 since the two trees have flourished, the rootless one bearing foliage to its 

 base and behaving in every way as a perfect tree. — C. T. D. 



Grafting Experiments, Note on some. By R. H. Biffen, M.A., 

 Cambridge (Ann. Bot. vol. xvi., No. 61, p. 174 ; March 1902).— This note 

 is suggestive to gardeners, who have many opportunities of making 

 similar experiments. The author writes : " The following results are the 

 outcome of a series of experiments to test the possibility of obtaining 

 improved varieties of cultivated plants by employing the process of graft- 

 ing. The experiments of Daniel seem to show conclusively that the 

 stock and scion mutually affect each other, and that in some cases, at 

 all events, the changes so induced become hereditary (Daniel, Ann. d. Sci. 

 Nat. 1898, p. 1). So far my experiments have not been carried on for a 

 sufficient time to reach this stage, but as they confirm several other points 

 brought out by Daniel and introduce new ones they are of interest." The 

 author details his methods and says that the most successful grafts were 

 obtained by using seedling plants, with from three to six leaves, both for 

 stock and scion. Experiments with Beets, Tropceolum majus and T. 

 canariensc (properly called T. peregrinum), Radishes, various Crucifercz, 

 and Lccjuminosce are described, and it is then said that " this series of 

 experiments confirms Daniel's results that the effect of grafting is often 

 to dwarf the plants, retard their flowering season, and in some cases 

 render them far more liable to the attacks of animal pests. None of 

 them, though, show any visible signs of the scion and stock affecting each 

 other. This, however, is well shown in a series of Potato grafts. The 

 operation was performed by paring off a thick piece of skin containing an 

 eye or a shoot an inch or two long from one Potato and binding it tightly 

 over a similarly shaped pared patch on another tuber ; all the other eyes 

 were then destroyed, leaving only the scion to develop. One set of 

 Potatos (A) had thin smooth green skins and numerous deeply sunken 

 eyes, while the other (B) was readily distinguished by its thick rough 

 brown skin and its few shallow eyes. A was grafted on B, and B on A. 

 The resulting crop of tubers was the same in each case. From one and 

 the" same plant tubers of type A and B were obtained (often with their 

 characteristics much exaggerated ; e.g. the russet skin cracked so as to 

 resemble a truffle on the eyes exceedingly deep &c), and tubers one end 

 of which resembled A, the other B. In many cases there was a sharp 

 constriction between the A and B ends, but in some the yellowish-green 

 skin gradually passed over into the rough corky skin, and the tubers were 

 regular in shape. In every case the 1 rose-end ' (distal end) of the tuber 

 was of the A type, and the heel (proximal end) of the B type. Tubers in 

 which the two types were blended never occurred." If halved trans- 

 versely each portion was thus indistinguishable from one of its parents, 

 and both parents were represented by each tuber. These results are so 

 rema rkable that interest in further experiments can but be aroused. 



n. i. l. 



Grafting- Experiments, New. By II. Lindemuth (Gartenflora> 

 p. \2; 11 U)02). — Solanum crythrocarpon was grafted on Solanum 



