1S77,] 
VINES AND VINE-CULTURE.-CHAPTER XI. 
5 
have seen many cases of fruits and flowers having become changed by grafting, and 
our gardening periodicals teem with records (from many separate observers) bearing 
out the fact that varieties of fruit-trees, but especially Apples, Pears, Grapes, and 
Oranges, are changed by grafting, and that not merely in quantity of produce, but 
in size, shape, colour, time of ripening, and flavour. We all know how Muscat Ham¬ 
burg is improved when worked on a Black Hamburg stock, while Mr. David 
Thomson, Mr. Jack, of Battle Abbey, and many other cultivators, have given us 
evidence of the changes for the better effected by grafting other varieties. It is 
said—but I do not yet know how truly—that Mr. Maule has obtained tubers 
from plants of the common Sun-flower, this result having been brought about 
by grafting the Jerusalem Artichoke on that plant as a stock. If this statement 
proves to be true, it is even more remarkable than the same results obtained by 
the same experimenter in grafting potato-haulm on Solanum Dulcamara as a 
stock, about which the only doubt is as to whether the last-named plant does 
not sometimes produce tubers, or the semblance of tubers, on its fibrous or 
woody roots, when punctured or accidentally injured in some particular way. 
Mr. Darwin mentions in his Animals and &;c., that parti-coloured 
tubers of the Potato have been obtained by grafting, z.e., inarching the haulm 
merely of red and white varieties together. Again, there is the famous Cytisiis 
Adami. But really, the evidence that grafting does sometimes give rise to varia¬ 
tions, in a manner analagous to hybridism, is now so patent, that little more need 
be said on the subject, which in all its bearings is most w'onderful. I do not wish 
to throw any doubt on Mr. Wighton’s experiments, the results of which I feel 
sure are exactly such as he describes them, but as his remarks generally point to 
the conclusion that grafted plants always keep true to their kind, while, in many, 
very many cases, the opposite is known to be the case, I feel sure he will excuse 
my stating my belief on the point, my only apology for which must be a desire 
to induce other observers to come forward with the results of their experience, 
for the benefit of all the readers of the Florist and Pomologist.—F. W. 
Burbidge. 
VINES AND VINE-CULTUKE. 
Chapter XI.—Diseases and Injuries, and their Eemedies {continued), 
HANKING.—Of all the perplexing maladies that affect grapes, this is the 
worst; other agencies may destroy a crop, or even the plants, much more 
speedily and completely, but there is no ill pertaining to vines the true 
causes of which are so difficult to estimate and to grapple with as this. 
The term “ Shanking ” is applied to denote the drying or withering-up of the 
stalks of the bunches and berries of Grapes. Sometimes it is only a berry or two 
that ‘‘ shanks at other times it is the whole bunch, and in extreme cases it may 
be the entire crop. The period when shanking commences is just as the berries 
begin to change colour, or to ripen, and it continues more or less in action until 
they are ripe. The berries that thus shank or lose the vitality of their stalks 
