BOTANICAL INDEX. 
05 
pectinatum, Acrostichum aureitm, Asp idium patens, A. Floridanum, Asplenium firmum, A. 
myriophyllum, Blechnum serrulatum and Adiantum tenerum bear cultivation well, and 
form a very pleasing and varied collection. .Some of these grow on trees, some on 
the ground, and some hide away in limestone caves or “sinks” in the ground. Poly- 
podium plumula and P. incanum often grow on high branches of lofty live-oak trees 
in deep forests, and I have seen them waving from the huge limbs forty to fifty feet 
above the ground, where they were entirely inaccessible. 
INFLUENCE OF THE GRAFT UPON THE STOCK. 
L. S. MOTE, WEST MILTON, OHIO. 
■ N writing a few words on the subject of Grafting, it is not my purpose to 
open up a discussion on that old mooted question of stock influence, but sim- 
ply to note a little what has come under my own obervation, more especially, 
that of graft influence on the stock. Perhaps no one who has had much ex- 
^iSSS perience in this line of business will attempt a denial of the existence of 
such a fact. In stock influence, I observe if we take a scion of the Yellow 
Belleflower apple, for instance, and insert it in a sweet apple stock when it produces 
fruit it will be a Yellow Belleflower in size, shape and coloring (perhaps), hut its 
acidity will be much modified by the stock’s saccharine juices. I have noticed too 
that some varieties were much improved in size and external appearance by being 
set on other stocks than the original native ones; and further, that many a nice 
nursery tree died a premature death by being grafted on a weakly, sickly stock. 
We find something of a similar character in ros’e grafting. My friend E. G. Hill, 
recent foreman of Cascade Gardens in Richmond, Ind., showed me some of his ex- 
periments with the Abutilon, by grafting some of the plain-leaved varieties on 
Thompsonii stocks ; the leaves of the scion become nearly as much variegated as 
that of the stock. But now, on the other hand, does the graft have any influence on 
the stock? My opinion is that there is more of it than a casual observer would dis- 
cover. Those who have cultivated fruit trees to any extent know what a vast differ- 
ence there is in the growth of certain varieties of apples, pears, peaches and cherries, 
the strong growers making double the amount of wood in a season that the weak 
growers do; the stocks on which the grafts or buds are inserted, being stimulated by 
their vigorous running sap, keeping in equal pace and size with the top growth. 
The wood of Quince, also, below a bud or graft of a strong growing pear, will make 
double the growth it does generally. Nevertheless it is reasonable to suppose that 
two opposite forces thus combining will produce certain modifications in each other. 
A sample of graft influence on the stock may be seen at my house. Last summer 
I cut a graft off from an Abutilon Thomsonii, and inserted it on a branch of a plain 
leaved variety over three feet in height (from the root.) The pot was plunged in the 
border. The graft grew through summer rather slowly and was not much noticed; 
but passing it one day in September I discovered lateral shoots up and down the 
stock, and all, underneath the graft, were nearly as much variegated in leaf as the 
graft, whilst those on the opposite side were simply plain ones like the branches. 
Those distinctions reached clear down to the base. This instance of a sportive ten- 
dency is not quite as much of an anomaly as I had supposed, for upon a little re- 
search I find in Gardeners'' Monthly of 1866, December number, instances of this char- 
acter are noted by the editor : “Mr. William Reid of Elizabeth, New Jersey, showed 
some Variegated Willows which he had grafted on some plain leaved ones, and the 
variegations were pushing out all down the sides of the stock below the graft.” 
Another instance or two is mentioned : “Mr. J. Stough had grafted a Mountain 
Ash with scions of the Bartlett Pear, three feet above the ground. Next season a 
pear sprout pushed out from the Ash stock six inches below the graft.” “He once 
grafted the Rose Acacia, Pobinia hispida, on the Black Locust, B. Pseud-acacia; sprouts 
pushed out of the stock below the graft, similar in every respect to the graft above.” 
Many other instances might be presented to prove that oftimes there is a manifest 
and to a considerable extent a controlling influence of the graft upon the stock. 
Will the editor be so kind as to give us his opinion in regard to those sportive lateral 
shoots whether there is a sufficient fixedness imparted in their constitution to re- 
main in scions taken and propagated from, or will revert back again as soon as dis- 
connected from this circulating influence. 
[We wish some of our practical and more experienced horticulturists (than our- 
| selves) would give their observation in this graft influence upon the stock. We will, 
however, attempt a few lines in the next number on our observation, which we must 
now say is very limited. — Ed. Bot. Ind.] 
