^Fakch 4. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
4U7 
I 
]\rr. Veitcli sent six specimen plants of as inanj' kinds 
i of Fjjtacris, wliicli were beautifully and closely grown, 
' and well bloomed. The highest-coloured ones ran thus, 
Anhidissimti, 'I’diDilouiensis, fine, Scini/itinea, Coecinea 
flonlmnda, Miiynijlea, rose, and (Jem, a fine blush, also 
lihododendron purpnmim, to show liow well it is adapted 
I for early forcing, it is of the Pontic breed, and seems 
like Alba vmUlJlord among forcing Geraniums, for you 
could not perceive tliat the plant had been in heat ; a 
hright-llowered Corma, in the way of speeiosa ; a Strep- 
I tocarpuspohjanUms, tlowers on one stalk; 
and a very jnetty new plant from Assam, belonging to 
Cinchonads, hut with the appearance of some Philadel- 
jdms, with large white flowers. 
iNIr. Cuthush sent a beautiful collection of forced 
Ilijacintlis, in yellow loam, the highest coloured of which 
was called Solfaterre, a beautiful crimson-scarlet flower; 
C'/iYc, the next shade of scarlet; Beecher Stow, a fine 
pink ; Maria Theresa, a lighter pink; La Joijeuse, a deep 
blush ; Xorma, a light blush; and Diihe of Wellington, a 
double white ; with Keizer Alexander, a deep violet-blue, 
with a lighter eye; and Sir John Franldin, a single light 
blue; all of the very best kinds. 
Mr. k'orsyth, gardener to Baron Rothschild, sent two 
fine specimens of Phaius grandijlora, one of which bore 
twenty-one flower-spikes; a Boronia pinna ta and Medi- 
nella magnifica, in lirst-rate style. 
Six Chinese Primroses from F, Crockford, Esq., St. 
James’s Street, not worth a groat, and fifteen Hyacinths 
from Pi. Roshor, Esq., not much better. The Messrs. 
Rollinsou sent six large Orchids in good bloom ; Den- 
drohium speciosum, three kinds pf Vanda, a huge An- 
greecum ehnrneiim, a Xeottia maculata, the double white 
Primus, and Acacia eriocorpa, one of the globular flower¬ 
ing section, with a good, close habit and small leaves. 
There was a real acquisition, from Messrs. Standish 
and Noble—a wild Chinese Viburnum, allied to, if not 
the real parent of, Vihurnum macrocephalus. No one can 
grow Macrocephalus on its own roots, else we should see 
it in every collection; but it will graft freely on this 
wild one, and grow and flower on it as well as P'ortuno 
says it does in China. 
Among the score of plants sent up from the nurseries 
to show the eflects of the different modes of Grafting, 
the most useful to know is, that all the rai'e Piniises, or, 
rather, the whole race of Conifers, should be grafted 
down as low as the collar of the plant which is used for 
a stock; then, by planting such grafted plants sufficiently 
I deep to bury the grafted part, roots will come from the 
; scion, or graft, in time, so that the plant, ultimately, 
grows on its own roots. This is really a useful lesson; 
^ but the lecture on grafting embraced the whole subject 
of stocks to graft on, from the most perfect stock, with 
which the graft unites so completely, that a section of 
the parts cannot reveal the points of union, to the very 
worst of stocks, on which the graft never takes properly, 
and from whieh it ultimately severs,just as the footstalk 
of a leaf parts with the branch, naturally, in the autumn. 
Grafting was not a discovery, but a natural condition, 
under particular circumstances; as when two branches 
of Ivy cross each other, and cling so fast to every side, 
that the one cannot give way for the other to grow, so 
the two unite and grow together as if they were grafted 
at the crossing. Roots graft in a like manner when they 
come in contact; but some of the absurdities anent graft- 
; ing, wbich obtained currency in Carthage, in Greece, and 
i in Romo, have been chaunted by Virgil in his Georgies, 
: and we had a stanza from Dryden’s translation to prove 
! the facts. But grafting evergreen trees on deciduous ones, 
as the Deodar on the Larch, is not a whit more philoso¬ 
phical than the dreams of the Mantuan bard; yet we are 
compelled so to graft, in the face of absurdity, and make 
virtue of necessity. The Plum is not the natural stock 
for the Peach; but the Almond is. The roots of the 
Almond and Peach will not live, however, in our cold 
climate; and we must grow them both on the Plum, to 
the ))rejudicc of their strength and longevity. 
Wlien a graft and stock unite perfectly, by reason of 
the similarity of their constitution, or organization, does 
the graft send down wood to cover the stock ? or does the 
stock send up wood to thicken the stem, or what^ 
'There have been advocates of both theories, and both 
are wrong: wood is not made that way at all. “Wood 
makes wood,’’ and every wood after its kind, bj' its own 
cells. Thus, the graft wood makes graft wood only, and 
the stock wood does the same; but the one may grow 
three times, or three times three, faster than the" other, 
according to constitutional difference; and this differ¬ 
ence must, sooner or later, either kill the weakest, or 
rupture the alliance at the point of union. 
Drawings, in illustration of the subject, and actual 
specimens to verify the facts, were in abundance before 
our eyes; but who can enumerate them, or mind them, 
it the}' were named or numbered. Suffice it to say, that 
the Messrs. Standish and Noble produced evidence, 
which could not well be refuted, for the settlement of a 
ve.xed question, the best contested of our day,—that of 
grafting Rhododendrons. Does grafting them improve 
their hardiness; bring seedlings to flower sooner or 
more freely; increase or diminish the size or growth of 
the plants; qr make them to live longer? It is now 
perfectly W'ell ascertained that grafting Rhododendrons 
will secure all those changes; and it is equally well 
known, that grafting them will also do the very contrary 
of all these put together; but a gardener with healthy 
brains could tell as much the first day the question was 
mooted. 
How is it, then, that grafting Rhododendrons will 
make one branch “from a plant, or, rather, one graft from 
a plant, become more healthy, and flower sooner and 
better, than if it was left on the parent plant, if it is true 
that a second graft from the very same plant may never 
flower at all, or but seldom and indifferently, while its 
health and constitution are impaired by the operation? 
Can it be ])ossible, that the self-same process, by the 
same hands, on the same soil and aspect, elevation, and 
so forth, is productive of good and evil? Yea, these 
things are done every year of our lives, and will be done 
to the end of the chapter, notwithstanding all that has 
been done, said, or sung about grafting, from the days 
of Virgil to the present time. The whole question 
depends on skill and conscience. The first is the grand 
secret; skill determines the right kind of plant, and the 
right conditions under which that plant may bo made 
a stock of to improve a given variety of any family; 
or, if improvement is not the consideration, but to 
supply a demand in the market, skill is equally required 
to point out a stock which will not deteriorate the 
qualities of the graft, nor hinder the perfect develop¬ 
ment of the grafted plant. Skill determines all this for 
the races of plants that are usually grafted, and for 
Rhodendrons among the rest; but does conscience follow 
a man all over a nursery every day he grafts, or orders 
grafting to be done ? Where the conscience prevails, 
irr conjunction with practical skill, every stock will be 
not only suitable, but the most so for every particular 
graft; but empiricism, with all the conscience in the 
world, could not be trusted with the proper selection of 
stocks. How, then, is an ignorant man likely, with no 
conscience about the matter, to go about the business? 
Why, he take the most accessible stocks on hand, grafts 
them, and, if he but gets bis bills paid, be cares little, 
and fears less, about the fate of his grafted plants; which 
brings us round just to the very corner we always start 
from, when we advise our readers to have no dealings 
with the low, petty-fogging, low-priced quacks, which 
infest the world, and gull that portion of it whoso creed 
is governed by cheapness and bombastic pulling. 
