HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 85 
grow on Pear trees, or Apples on Apples of similar habits. It does not 
happen in the same degree where Pears are grafted on Quinces, or Peaches 
are budded on the varieties of Plum. For although we employ such stocks, 
and with advantage, it is expressly because there is so much difference in 
the constitution of the scion and stock as to diminish the rate of growth of 
the former ; and although the Peach will live for many years on a Plum, 
yet all gardeners know how great is their tendency to separate. In fact, 
if an old Peach tree worked on a Plum stock be allowed to dry, and is then 
so placed horizontally that the joint (of graft and stock) rests without sup- 
port between two upright posts, and then receives a violent blow, the stock 
and scion will come asunder, as if no organic union had ever been effected. 
Had the Peach been worked on the Peach under equally favorable con- 
ditions, no such fracture would be practicable. 
Wherever we look we are met with evidence to this fact. A man may 
graft a Cherry on a common Laurel, a Cedar of Lebanon on a Larch, or a 
China upon a Dog-rose, and we all know that saleable plants are thus manu- 
factured. But it will soon cease to be worth the while of the trade to form 
such plants, seeing that buyers now generally learn that they are merely 
ephemeral curiosities. If any one doubts this, let him inquire how many of 
the thousands of worked Conifers which have come into the market within 
the last 20 years are still alive. It would turn out, we have little doubt, 
that the only healthy specimens now discoverable are those of varieties of 
the same species, or closely allied species, worked on each other, as for in- 
instance the yellow-berried Yew on the common Yew, or the Deodar on the 
Cedar of Lebanon. Is the Rhododendron an exception to the universal 
law ? We think not. When a variety of Rhododendron ponticum is worked 
on the wild ijonticum it finds itself at home and grows as well and is pro- 
bably just as long lived as if it were " on its own bottom." But this does 
not appear to be the case when the varieties of catawbiense are put upon 
ponticum, or of arboreum and its allies on some European or North Ameri- 
can stock. In saying this, we would by no means assert that very fine 
specimens of tree Rhododendrons may not be produced by grafting cataw- 
biense on some other stock ; but we certainly cannot admit that they are 
ever so handsome or so durable as if they found themselves on their own 
stock; and this is what we understand our correspondent "J. R." to con- 
tend for. It is not the mere act of grafting that is objected to, but that of 
grafting upon stocks of another species; and if this is so, all the remarks of 
Mr. Pearson become irrelevant. 
In fact one of our practical correspondents who advocates the cause of 
