I 
GARDENERS’ SOCIETIES. 347 
cation, more especially as we believe the whole to be written more for 
the sake of junior readers, and to elicit further details, than for any 
purpose of justifying your own opinions or those of others antagonist 
to ourselves. All your objections are founded upon a circumstance, 
the truth of which we positively deny ; and therefore, combating these 
your objections would only lead us to use the same arguments we have 
employed repeatedly before. 
Concerning the bleeding of a vine, however, deserves notice, because 
it is a practical matter. It is a well-known fact, that no part of a tree 
bleeds from a wound, during summer, so much as it does in the spring; 
and the reason is—in the latter season the juices are in a highly excited 
state, just awakened from the repose of winter by the increasing tem¬ 
perature of the season : whereas in summer it is exhausted by the 
evolution of shoots and the perspiring action of the leaves, so that there 
is no redundance to escape. The example quoted about the growth of 
the roots of cherry-trees, is also a well -known fact, and is a direct proof 
of the correlative connexion between the graft and stock—the former 
imposing its manner of growth upon the latter, strong shoots making 
strong roots,and vice versa . Attributing to sap the power of giving forms, 
accords not with our ideas, though we admit it may convey colour. 
The remaining part of your rejoinder contains no question which we 
feel incumbent upon us to answer. Simple questions may be answered, 
but assertions require a long tissue of re-assertions, which are seldom 
mutually convincing or advantageous. The ‘‘ nourishing part of a 
plant ” is as obscure to us as indusium and its properties are “ new¬ 
fangled ” to you. In describing a membrane which was not identified 
before, (except under its temporary name of cambium ,) it was necessary 
to coin a new term; and we hope that, if our description be otherwise 
sufficiently explicit, the new term will not be considered a blemish. 
Multiplying words, or repeating former arguments on the present 
occasion, can serve no good purpose, more especially as you seem to 
think that, however correct, the theory can be of no practical use. 
We conclude by again recommending the subject to your notice; 
and should you hereafter hit upon any practical fact which militates 
strongly against our peculiar opinions, we shall be glad to hear of it, 
and will give it our best consideration.— -Ed, 
Sir,—I t must be pleasing to all who have an interest in the advance¬ 
ment of the gardening profession, to see with what avidity some of your 
correspondents have taken up and are agitating the subject of Gardeners’ 
Mutual Instructing Societies. Month after month we find fresh writers 
on the subject proclaiming to the world the indispensible necessity of 
