THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GDIDE. 
07 
the theory and practice of grafting to be so little understood by the 
young gardeners who come to complete their education at Chiswick, 
that it is rarely that any of them are able to graft successfully until 
after the erroneous notions with which they come impregnated are 
eradicated and corrected. It seems that the drawings and woodcuts 
which are given of the process of grafting, by the most eminent 
writers on the subject, almost always convey an erroneous impres- 
sion ou the very point on which success entirely depends. The 
woodcuts of the slips and grafts prepared for adhesion turn the at- 
tention more to an equality of dimension, and to a correct fitting 
of the outside of the bark of the one to the outside of the bark of 
the other, than to an exact apposition of cambium of the one to that 
of the other, on which, in point of fact, adhesion and grafting abso- 
lutely and solely depend. 
It appears to me that the exhibition of the specimens I have 
obtained for the Society’s case may serve to bring before the eye 
the true merits and virtues of grafting and budding, as weU as their 
disadvantages, in a form that may he useful. 
I may observe that the specimens of which the collection con- 
sists have been obtained from Chiswick, and from Mr. AVilliam 
Paul. The specimens received from Chiswick consist of a selection 
of sections of fruit-tree grafts of all kinds and ages. The vast 
number of old fruit-trees at Chiswick, now condemned and about to 
be rooted out, furnished an almost unlimited supply of this material. 
Those from Mr. Paul are of buddings of roses of various ages, which 
I selected from the desire to show the difference of the effects of 
budding and of grafting on the part operated upon. 
The Members of this, Committee know very well that, in all 
instances of transfusing a part of one plant into that of another, 
whether by grafting, or budding, or any other mode, the only point 
at which transfusion or union can take place is the single outer 
circle of vessels which lies between the bark and the wood, in which 
the passage of the s ip alone takes place, and by which the connec- 
tion between the roots and the leaves, and the consequent deposit 
of wood and growth of the tree, alone take place. 
I am afraid, however, that the more general impression is, that 
a branch grafted on to another, is united to the stock on which it is^ 
grafted throughout its whole surface ; that it grows together as two 
parts of an animal body united by the first intention — as, for ex- 
ample, part of a finger cut off and immediately clapped on again. 
The examination of the specimens which I have brought together 
will serve to correct any such misapprehension. They show that 
there is no union whatever at any part of the wood of the scion 
applied to the wood of the stock, except at the single outer ring of 
the alburnum, already mentioned. Indeed, a small film of a brown- 
ish substance is deposited along every part of the applied surfaces, 
except the outer ring, where the union takes place ; and some of 
the specimens which I exhibit show isolated deposits of wood and 
woody fibre enveloped in this brown deposit, which I imagine to be 
oozings of woody matter something analogous to what is called 
proud flesh in the animal body. 
March. 
