162 
Reviews and Extracts, — Horticulture^ ^c. 
Vines however, struck from eyes, we have always found far preferable, at all 
times, to layers, either for planting' on the border or for vineries ; they in the end 
produce much better and more durable plants. Cut an old vine, near the bottom, 
that has been raised from layers, and one that was raised from cuttings, and the 
difference will at once be manifest. In that raised from a layer, the same bad, 
spongy pith will be discernable, as when it was planted, which will be found to 
be of a dusky, brown colour : examine the one raised from cuttings, and it will be 
seen that the pith is small, and the wood sound and solid. The less pith there is in 
all fruit-trees, the longer they will continue sound and resist the severe weather* 
and produce more valuable fruit. Hence it is, that all young, free-growing, fruit 
trees, are bettor, and last longer when removed two or three times. This is par¬ 
ticularly apparent in Peach, Nectarine, and Apricot-trees, particularly the former, 
and it is quite a mistaken notion, that so much time is gained in planting layers, 
instead of cuttings. 
^^Buddhg anil grafting, are operatmns that equally depend for their success 
upon the property that buds possess, of shooting roots downwards, and stems up¬ 
wards; but in these practices, the roots strike betw'cen the bark and wood of the 
stock, instead of into the earth, and form new layers of wo'xl, instead of subterra¬ 
nean fil)res. The success of such practices, however, depends upon other causes 
tlian those which inlluencc the growth of cuttings. It is necessary that an 
adhesion should take plaee between the scion and the stock, so that when the 
descending fibres of the buds shall have fixed themselves upon the wood of the 
stock, they may not be liable to subsequent separation. No one can have studied 
the economy of the vegetable kingdom, without having remarked that there is a 
strong tendency to cohesion, in bodies parts, that are placed in contact with each 
other. Two stems are tied together for some purpose; when the ligature is 
removed they are found to have grown into one. Two cucumbers, accidentally 
placed side by side, or two apples growing in contact with each other, form double 
cucumbers or double apples ; and most of the nominal modifications of the leaves, 
floral envelopes, or fertiliiiing organs, are due to various degrees of cohesion, in 
contiguous parts. This cohesion will be always found to take place in the cellular 
tissue only, and never in the vascular tissue. 
Budding differs from grafting, in this—that a portion of a stem is not made to 
strike root on another stem, .but that, on the contrary, a bud, deprived of all 
trace of the woody part of a stem, is introduced beneath the bark of the slock, and 
there induced to strike root. In this operation, no care is requisite in securing* the 
exact contact of similar parts, and a free chance for the transmission of the roots of 
the bud between the bark and the wood, of the stock ; for, from the very nature 
of the operation of budding, this must of necessity be ensured. Transplanting, is, 
perhaps, that operation in which the greatest difficulty is generally found to exist, 
and in which the causes of success or failure, are often the least understood. Vo¬ 
lumes have been written upon the subject, and the whole range of vegetable 
physiology has been called in aid of the explanation of the theory ; yet I am 
much mistaken if it cannot be proved to depend e.xclusively upon tin; two following 
circumstances : 1st,—the preservation of the spongioles of the roots ; and, ‘2nd,— 
the prevention of excessive evaporation. It is well known that plants feed upon 
fluid contained in the soil, and that their roots are the mouths through which the 
o 
food is conveyed into their body. Hut the absorption of fluid does not take place 
either by all the surface of their roots, nor even of their fibres, but only by the 
extremities of the latter, consisting of bundles of vessels, surrounded by cellular 
tissue, in a very lax, spongy state, whence those extremities are called spongioles. 
That it is only through the spongioles. that absorption to any amoimt takes place. 
