grafting; its consequences and effects. 147 
A close paraphrase, on the part of Erasmus Darwin, so far 
as the last lines are concerned, of those of Virgil, already cited. 
Turning now to the effects produced by grafting on the 
scion and on the stock respectively, we open up a very inter- 
esting subject for enquiry, and we make apparent the objects 
for which grafting is employed. Gardeners, as a rule, hold 
that in the great majority of instances no effect beyond adhesion 
is produced. There are some plausible reasons for this opinion, 
it must be admitted, inasmuch as the change is very often not 
obvious on the surface. One experimenter tells us for instance 
that he grafted at various times on the same jargonelle pear no 
less than eighteen different grafts. Of these eighteen, ten were 
apples of various kinds, while the remainder were made up of 
pears, hawthorns, medlar, and quince. All these grafts, we are 
told, succeeded — at least for a time ; fruit was produced from 
the scions in nearly all cases ; but there is no evidence to show 
that this extraordinarily composite tree ever produced any fruit 
differing from the usual character of that naturally yielded 
by itself, or by its numerous parasitically attached grafts. 
More extraordinary still is a case wherein a French experi- 
menter, M. Carillet, of Vincennes, first of all took two pear- 
trees, both of which were grafted on the quince stocks. These 
we will call a and b. a was planted in the usual way, then b 
was grafted on it, but in an inverted position, head downwards, 
roots uppermost. When the operation was completed, there 
were thus two pear-trees united by their leading shoots, but the 
upper one, B, was reversed in position, with its roots completely 
exposed. To add to the strangeness of the experiment, M. 
Carillet next grafted on the ends of four of the principal roots 
of B — quince-roots of course — four different varieties of pears, 
two of which succeeded ; so that the entire plant consisted, first 
of a quince stock rooted in the soil and bearing a grafted pear ; 
on this latter, but in an inverted position, was another pear, 
also grafted on the quince and with its roots uppermost ; on 
'these again were grafted two more pears. This illustration 
shows that the current of the sap is quite independent of the 
direction of the tissues. It must have passed as readily through 
the inverted as through the erect stem ; but what is more to 
the point, so far as we are concerned at present, is that though 
the sap passed through no less than six different organisms, 
adherent one to the other, yet each portion of the composite 
structure retained its own individuality.* 
There are, indeed, many cases in which no apparent 
change takes place, as a result of grafting. Archbishop 
Whateley, with a view of ascertaining whether any change 
* “Gardeners’ Chronicle,” 1867, p. 947, ex “Revue Horticole.’ 
