THE CULTIVATOR. 
Horticultural Humbugs. 
The recent grave announcement in the proceedings 
of the United States Agricultural Society, that a cer¬ 
tain learned (?) “ professor,” and a prominent actor in 
the deliberations of that body, had presented a head 
of wheat and chess growing on the same root, reminds 
us of several similar wonders, which have been at va¬ 
rious times announced to the world. The question very 
naturally arises, whether . this is the first example of 
half transmuted wheat that has ever occurred, and 
why,—if it is so very common for wheat to take a fan¬ 
cy to pass generic boundaries, and become chess,—-it 
should be so very rarely caught in the act ? Why, 
among the million farmers of this continent, each ha v¬ 
ing in his field a thousand million stalks of wheat, 
should not more be found, who can catch the cunning 
plant in the act of dodging out of its own proper ter¬ 
ritories and invading those of the chess plant? A 
whole field of wheat is converted to countless myriads 
of plapts of chess—now, when is this done, at what 
time of day or night—why cannot numerous spe¬ 
cimens be found of such as are in a transition state, 
instead of a single example, so rare that it must be sent 
from Livingston county, N. Y., to Newark, N. J., and 
thence to be exhibited before the most learned agri¬ 
cultural body in America, as a thing that none of them 
had ever before witnessed ? 
But leaving more learned men to explain this diffi¬ 
culty, our present purpose is to mention a few other 
wonders, and how they are manufactured. We have 
heard of grafting the peach on the willow, and that 
when the tree thus produced bears peaches, they will 
be a uniform mass of pulp without any stone! We 
have also heard that at a certain day of the moon, the 
peach might be grafted into the butternut, which we 
do not question, although we shall not guaranty the 
success of the job. Many have heard of placing the 
halves of two dissimilar apple-buds in contact, to pro¬ 
duce a sweet-and-sour apple, but we could never j^et 
find the man who would say that he had seen the ope¬ 
ration successfully performed, he had only heard it 
from another.* But we shall not trouble ourselves and 
readers to account for what only exists by flying report; 
we have only to do at present with actually exhibited 
wonders. In describing some of these, we cannot do 
better than to quote from a recent article in the Lon¬ 
don Gardener's Chronicle :— 
Some 25 years since an English nobleman pur¬ 
chased in Italy, for a large sum, from an honest dealer 
there, a marvellous plant, which, as he thought con¬ 
firmed the old Virgilian tale of Apples growing upon 
Plane trees. At least it appeared to his'lordship to 
negative the general belief that dissimilar species can¬ 
not be made to unite by grafting; for here he had a 
Jasmine, a Honeysuckle, a Myrtle, and an Olive, all 
grafted on an Orange tree and 'flourshing luxuriantly. 
In due time the specimen reached England, and was for 
many months the admiration of the intelligent visitors 
* Many are familiar with what is termed the “ sweet-and- 
sour ” apple, caused by a sort of diseased or imperfectly de¬ 
veloped pulp on one side, but never by two buds united after 
being cut directly through the heart. 
We need not say that all these tales, like the ancient 
authorities so learnedly quoted by our calassical friend, 
are mere fables; and that the examples by which they 
are supported, whether new or old, are instances of fraud 
and credulity. 
The trick by means of which are obtained such trees 
as that to which we adverted is now perfectly under¬ 
stood, and 30 years since was explained, under the name 
of “ Impostors Grafting,’ 5 by the late Andre Thouin, 
from whose article Greffe in the Nouveau Cours d’Ag¬ 
riculture (1822), the following is an extract:— 
<c The so-called greffe des charlatans is nothing more 
than a plantation formed within the trunk of a tree, 
which has been hollowed out longitudinally quite into 
the ground below its roots. One or more young plants 
furnished with good roots are drawn through the trunk, 
and their roots are then covered with rich vegetable 
mould. These plants grow vigorously, fill up the cavity 
in the trunk with their stems, which squeeze closely 
together and eventually form at the top of the opening 
a swelling which perfectly resembles that produced by 
grafting. 
“In this way was most probably formed the group of 
trees which Pliny the naturalist observed in the gar¬ 
dens of Lucullus at Tivoli, and which is described in 
his‘Natural History.’ On the trunk of one tree he 
saw branches, some of which produced Pears, others 
Figs, Apples, Plums, Oliyes, Almonds, Grapes, &c.; but 
he adds, a little farther on, that this wonderful tree, 
which he cousidered as produced by the art of grafting, 
did not live long, and that it died some years after he 
first examined it. 
M. Thouin further tells us that he himself tried the 
operation with perfect success upon both a Lime and an 
Ash tree a foot in diameter. He contrived to give both 
of tthem heads consisting of Plums, Hazels, wild and 
cultivated Services, Walnuts, Peaches, and Vines, the 
branches of which were thoroughly interlaced. Of one 
of these he gives a figure which we reproduce, and which 
perfectly illustrates the system. 
