GRAFTING ; ITS CONSEQUENCES AND EFFECTS. 145 
plants, apt to produce twin embryos, and, what is more to our 
point, the twain are not unfrequently adherent like their 
famous Siamese counterparts. We have before us as we write, 
thanks to the courtesy of an American correspondent, a case 
wherein two seedling plants of the Osage orange (Maclura) are 
thus united together. In this plant the seedling consists of a 
root or radicle, surmounted by a “ caulicle ” which bears the two 
seed leaves above which the stem proper begins. Now, in our 
specimen, the roots are free and the stems are free, but the two 
caulicles are intimately united throughout their entire length. In 
America, where the Osage orange is largely grown as a hedge- 
plant, such unions are said to be not infrequent. Mr. Thwaites, 
the eminent director of the Botanic Oar dens, Ceylon, records * 
a yet more curious instance, wherein two embryos were con- 
tained in one seed of a fuchsia, the two embryos possessing, 
moreover, different characteristics — a circumstance probably 
due to their hybrid origin, the seed in question having been 
the result of the fertilisation of one variety of fuchsia by the 
pollen of another. 
It would be easy to multiply instances, but we have said 
enough to show that union may, and does occasionally, take 
place between different parts of the same individual plants, or 
between different plants of the same species, and even between 
plants of different specific nature. 
Gardeners have not been slow to avail themselves of this 
hint. At this season of the year, in our large nurseries, a small 
army of expert workmen may be seen preparing the stocks for 
the reception of the “graft,” adjusting the latter in its place, 
and with an amount of precision, dexterity, and rapidity truly 
marvellous, the more so as a glance at the horny hands of the 
operators would not lead one to credit their owners with the 
possession of the requisite surgical nicety of manipulation. 
One main object of this grafting process is the multiplication 
of desirable varieties of fruit or other trees, which could not be 
reproduced by other means with sufficient certainty and rapidity, 
and in some cases not at all. Other reasons why grafting is 
done will become apparent as we proceed. In the meantime, 
we may briefly allude to some of the conditions for successful 
grafting, so far, at least, as they are yet known to us. The 
first is that the plants furnishing the stock and the scion 
respectively should be nearly related one to the other. We 
may set aside as fables the stories previously alluded to, or at 
any rate we may explain them by the operation of causes other 
than those of grafting properly so called. But there is some- 
thing more than mere botanical kinship necessary, and what 
* “ Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist./’ March 1848. 
