grafting; its consequences and effects. 143 
Before adverting to the artificial process as practised by the 
gardeners, it may be well to allude to what Nature herself does 
in this way without assistance from man. The union of branch 
to branch of the same tree is so common a phenomenon that we 
need not dwell upon it further than to note it as the simplest 
and commonest case of grafting, at least so far as flowering 
plants are concerned. Among the fungi, indeed, or even in the 
early stages of growth of the mosses, the young plants become 
so inextricably intergrafted that the so-called individual is 
really a republic one and undivided. In the higher plants the 
grafting process is exceptional, and is the result of some 
abrasion which removes the outer rind, and thus allows the 
growing tissues of the two abraded surfaces to come into contact, 
and under favourable circumstances to adhere to each other.. 
Union of the contiguous branches of two trees of the same species 
is of equally common occurrence with that just mentioned, and 
to this occurrence the great size of some trees is attributable. 
We mention these more familiar illustrations with nothing 
more than passing comment. They illustrate the power that 
growing vegetable tissues have of uniting, and that is all we 
want with their testimony in this place. More important for 
our purpose is the evidence that plants of different species will 
unite together. This has been denied, but there are plenty of 
cases on record, and one facetious observer (Charles Waterton) 
compared the union of a spruce-fir with an elm, and the conse- 
quent stunting of both, to the incongruous union of Church and 
State ! Such cases are certainly abnormal and exceptional, but 
they exist nevertheless, as a visit to Richmond Park will attest* 
There may be seen, or might have been a year or two since, a 
thorn ( Cratcegus ) adherent to a horn-beam ( Garpinus ). There 
are cases where the contact of the two trees has been so firm and 
so persistent that at length the two have become actually in- 
separable unless great force were used. It must, however, be 
remembered that we cite these cases simply as instances of the 
union of two distinct species, not of grafting properly so called. 
The difference is this — a graft derives its nourishment through 
the stock on which it is placed, while in the cases just alluded 
to each plant, though firmly joined to its neighbour, is per- 
fectly independent of it in the matter of food. The same 
statement, however, cannot be made with reference to the 
mistletoe or the Loranthus. These are different enough from 
the trees on which they grow; they adhere to their foster- 
parents with a tenacity greater than that of any graft, and they 
suck the very life-blood out of them, ensuring their own 
destruction by causing the death of the trees on which they 
grow. It is worth while noting this fact in connection with 
the well-known tendency that grafting, as artificially practised. 
