354 PARKS AND PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



that we had grafted P. Morinda on common spruces, 

 at Hopetoun, and that they are now fine trees. Mr. 

 Barron, of Elvaston, seems to have been equally suc- 

 cessful with the deodar on the common cedar. At 

 present, indeed, P. nobilis, grandis, and some other 

 species, and many of the singular varieties, can hardly 

 be procured from nurseries in any other form: In 

 grafting, the stock should be of a vigorous and allied 

 species. We found that while Morinda flourished on 

 the spruce, it merely lived and dwindled on the Scotch 

 fir. The scion should be taken, if possible, from the 

 point of the leading shoot of an upper lateral branch ; 

 inattention to this precaution has been the cause of 

 many failures in grafting. We have seen good plants 

 of P. Deodar a and Morinda formed from cuttings ; 

 and we should suppose that the same method might 

 succeed with various other of the small-leaved species. 

 In most plants, however, propagated by grafts or cut- 

 tings, some attention and skill is required, to throw, 

 by judicious pruning, the main strength of the tree 

 toward the leading shoot. After all, seedlings will 

 always be justly preferred. Hitherto many young 

 pines have been grown in pots. This has arisen partly 

 from the great demand for rare species, partly from 

 the idea, which is more or less correct, that some of 

 these are tender when young, and partly also from the 

 facility with which, when grown in pots, they can be 

 transmitted to distant parts of the country at any sea- 

 son. These supposed advantages are often sadly coun- 

 terbalanced by the early contortion of the roots, and 

 the consequent overthrow of the trees, in later years, 

 by strong winds, a disaster by far too common in pine- 

 tums. When put, at first, into very small pots — 



