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TABLE.—(conrinvzp.)
APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES,
North West.
Hygrom.
“HOON 12 AINISIOW
Jo dalgeq uBsoyy
‘UOON 10 ssautsiq.
Jo volseq usa
0-0 |1000
56 | 988
0-0 |1000
6-0! 749
Thermometer.
“BIpoW
“BUITUTT UBO}T
“CUIXB Way
50°3 | 28-0 | 39-1
47:0 | 42°5 | 44-7
54'5 | 38-0 | 46-2
West.
Hygrom,
‘COON 18 GIN BIO;
Jo aoigeq usayy
“WOON 18 ssousIG
JO sa1g0q Uva
6-2 | 788
Thermometer.
TIpOW
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“BUNIXB]Y UBOT
1
8
5.
7
South West.
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‘WOON 12 ssaudiqg
jo ea13aq wayyy
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Thermometer.
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September
October
November -
December -
' 59-1 | 43°7 | 514
Means
OF ATMOSPHERICAL TEMPERATURS. 135
As to temperature in the open air, unconnected
with atmospherical humidity, there seems to be no
means of regulating or modifying it to any consider-
able extent. In some respects, however, we have
even this powerful agent under our control; but, in
order to exercise such control, it is necessary to un
derstand correctly the theory of what is called radia-
tion, which cannot be better explained than in the
words of Mr. Daniell. ‘The power of emitting heat
in straight lines in every direction, independently of —
contact, may be regarded as a property common to
all matter; but differing in degree in different kinds
of matter. Coexisting with it, in the same degrees,
may be regarded the power of absorbing heat so
emitted from other bodies. Polished metals and the
fibres of vegetables may be considered as placed at
the two extremities of the scale upon which these pro-
perties in different substances may be measured. If
a body be so situated that it may receive just as
much radiant heat as itself projects, its temperature
remains the same; if the surrounding bodies emit
heat of greater intensity than the same body, its tem-
perature rises, till the quantity which it receives ex-
actly balances its expenditure, at which point it again
becomes stationary ; and if the power of radiation be
exerted under circumstances which prevent a return,
the temperature of the body declines. Thus, if a
thermometer be placed in the focus of a concave me-
tallic mirror, and turned towards any portion of the
sky, at any period of the day, it will fall many de-
grees below the temperature of another thermometer
136 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
placed near it, out of the mirror; the power of radia-
tion is exerted in both thermometers, but to the first
all return of radiant heat is cut off, while the other
receives as much from the surrounding bodies, as it-
self projects. This interchange amongst bodies takes
place in transparent media as well as in vacuo; but
in the former case, the effect is modified by the
equalising power of the medium.
“Any portion of the surface of the globe which is
fully turned towards the sun receives ‘more radiant
heat than it projects, and becomes heated; but when,
by the revolution of the axis, this portion is turned
from the source of heat, the radiation into space still
continues, and, being uncompensated, the temperature
declines. In consequence of the different degrees in
which different bodies possess this power of radiation,
two contiguous portions of the system of the earth
will become of different temperatures; and if on a
clear night we place a thermometer upon a grass-plat,
and another upon a gravel walk or the bare soil, we
shall find the temperature of the former many degrees
below that of the latter. The fibrous texture of the
grass is favourable to the emission of the heat, but
the dense surface of the gravel seems to retain and
fix it. But this unequal effect will only be perceived
when the atmosphere is unclouded, and a free passage
is open into space; for even a light mist will arrest
the radiant matter in its course, and return as much
to the radiating body as it emits. The intervention
of more substantial obstacles will of course equally
prevent the result, and the balance of temperature
OF ATMOSPHERICAL TEMPERATURE. 137
will not be disturbed in any substance which is not
placed in the clear aspect of the sky. A portion of
a grass-plat under the protection of a tree or hedge,
will generally be found, on a clear night, to be eight
or ten degrees warmer than surrounding unsheltered
paris; and it is well known to gardeners, that less
dew and frost are to be found in such situations, than
in those which are wholly exposed.” (Hort. Trans.,
vi. 8.)
These laws plainly direct us to the means we are
to employ to moderate . atmospherical temperature.
A screen, of whatever kind, interposed between the
sun and a plant, intercepts the radiant heat of the
sun, and returns it into space; and thus, in addition
to the diminution of perspiration by the removal ofa
part-of the stimulus that causes it, actually tends to
lower the temperature that surrounds the plant. In
like manner, the interposition of a screen, however
slight, between a plant and the sky, intercepts the
radiant heat of the earth; and, instead of allowing it
to pass off into space, returns it to the ground, the
temperature of which is maintained at a higher point
than it otherwise would be. Hence it is that plants
growing below the deep projecting eaves of houses, or
guarded by a mere coping of thatched hurdles, suffer
less in winter than if they were fully exposed to the
sky.
It is also obvious from what has been stated, that
plants growing upon grass will be exposed to a greater
degree of cold in winter than such as grow upon
gravel: but it does not therefore follow that hard
138 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES,
gravel is, with respect to vegetation, a better coating
for the surface of the ground than turf; it has its dis-
advantages as well as its advantages, and the former
probably outweigh the latter. In superior heating
power is its only advantage ; the objections to it are,
its dryness in summer, and its comparative imper-
meability to rain, so that it causes the force of per-
spiration to be inversely as the absorbing power of
the roots.
It is well known that blackened surfaces absorb
heat much more than those of any other colour; and
it has been expected that the effect of blackening gar-
den walls, on which fruit trees are trained, would be
to accelerate the maturation of the fruit; but notwith-
standing a few cases of apparent advantage, one of
which, of the Vine, is mentioned in the Horticultural
Transactions, vol. iii. p. 380, this has been, in general,
found either not to happen at all, or to so smal] an
extent as not to be worth the trouble. It is true, that
so long as the wall is so little covered by the
branches and leaves of a plant, the absorbent power
of the blackened surface is brought into play; but
this effect is lost as soon as the well becomes covered
with foliage. In the early spring, however, before
the leaves appear, the flowers are brought rather more
forward than would otherwise be the case; and in the
autumn the wood certainly becomes more completely
ripened, a result of infinite consequence in the north-
ern parts of the country.
It is rather to a judicious choice of soil and situa:
tion that the gardener must look for the means of
OF ATMOSPHERICAL TEMPERATURE. 189
softening the rigour of climate. Wet tenacious soils
are found the most difficult to heat or to drain, and
they will, therefore, be the most unfavourable to the
operations of the gardener; extremely light sandy
soils, on the other hand, part with their moisture so
rapidly, and absorb so much heat, that they are
equally unfavourable; and it is the light loamy soils,
which are intermediate between the two extremes,
that, as is well known, form the best soil for a gar-
den. Situation is, however, of much more conse-
quence than soil, for the latter may be changed or
improved, but a bad (that is, cold) situation is incur-
able. Cold air is heavier than warm air, and, conse-
quently, the stratum of the atmosphere next the soil
will be in general colder than those above it. When,
therefore, a garden is placed upon the level ground of
the bottom ofa valley, whatever cold air is formed upon
its surface remains there, and surrounds the herbage;
and, moreover, the cold air that is formed upon the
sides of low hills rolls down into the valley as quick-
ly as it is formed. Hence the fact which to many
seems surprising, that what are called sheltered places
are, in spring and autumn, the coldest. We all know
that the Dahlias, Potatoes, and Kidneybeans of the
sheltered gardens in the valley of the Thames, are
killed in the autumn by frosts whose effects are un-
felt on the low hills of Surrey and Middlesex.* Mr.
* [A contrary effect is experienced in the valleys of our large
rivers and lakes in the United States. On the banks of the Hudson
a margin of land from half a milc to a mile in width on each side ig
very effectually protected from the late spring and early autumnal
140 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
Daniell says he has seen a difference of 30°, on the
same night between two thermometers, placed, the
one in a valley, and the other on a gentle eminence,
in favour of the latter. Hence, he justly observes,
the advantages of placing a garden upon a gentle
slope must be apparent; ‘‘a running stream at its foot
would secure the further benefit of a contiguous sur-
face not liable to refrigeration, and would prevent any
injurious stagnation of the air.”
In addition to this, it has been said that, to obtain
the most favourable conditions of climate in this
country, a garden should have a south-eastern expo-
sure. This, however, has been recommended, I
think, without full consideration. It is true that in
such an exposure the early sunbeams will be re-
ceived; but, on the other hand, vegetation there
would be exposed to several unfavourable actions.
There would be little protection from easterly
winds, which, whether south-east or north-east, are
the coldest and driest that blow; in the next place
an exposure to the first sun of the morning, is very
prejudicial to garden productions that have been
frozen by the radiation of the night; it produces
frosts; while beyond that limit vegetation is blackened by them.
In autumn the warm vapour which rises on a cold night from so
large a surface probably protects the adjacent shores: and even
when moderate frosts actually occur, the morning fog, which lasts
an hour or two, by softening the sun’s rays and causing a gradual
thaw, often prevents any injurious result to vegetation. Some of
our large inland lakes, the surfaces of which are never frozen, have
a decided effect upon the local climate, rendering it much more mild
than it otherwise would be—A. J. D.]
OF ATMOSPHERICAL TEMPERATURE, 141
a sudden thaw, which, as gardeners well know,*
causes the death of plants which, if slowly thawed,
would sustain no inconvenience from the low temper-
ature to which they had been exposed.t It is proba-
ble, as I have elsewhere endeavoured to show, that
this singular effect may be accounted for as follows :—
“Jn such cases, it may be supposed that the air,
forced into parts not intended to contain it, is
expanded violently, and thus increases the disturb-
* See Hort. Trans., iii, 43.
+ [In the northern and eastern sections of the Union many beau-
tiful shrubs and plants, which are the ornaments of our gardens in
summer, but perish if exposed to the rigorous cold of winter, are
easily preserved upon this principle. The first impulse of the
novice in gardening is to place such half-hardy plants (as the more
delicate China Roses, Carnations, dc.) in some warm sheltered spot,
open to the genial rays of the sun in winter: a practice invariably
followed by their destruction. Our sun, even in mid-winter, often
shines with great brightness, and the thawing and distension of the
tissue of tender plants which therefore follows causes certain death,
If, on the contrary, the same species are placed in « cool shaded
aspect, or, what is preferable, if they are shielded from the sun by
a loose covering of straw, mats, or even boards, and thus kept from
thawing except in the most gradual manner, they will be found to
have sustained no injury whatever. We have seen a large num-
ber of the choicest Camellias preserved without any artificial heat
through a cold winter, when the mereury ranged below zero for seve-
ral weeks, simply by covering them with a common glazed frame,
well clothed with mats to, exclude the direct rays of the sun, or pre-
vent sudden variations of temperature. For the same reason, or-
chards of Peach trees in the middle States, on the cold north sides
of hills, are often more vigorous and of greater longevity than those
in a full southern aspect: the heat of our summers being sufficient to
ripen their fruit and wood in such situations, while they are thus
secured from the evils of great and sudden changes of temperature
in winter. A. J. DJ
142 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
ance already produced by its expulsion from the
proper air cavities; while, on the other hand, when
the thaw is gradual, the air may retreat by degrees
from its new situation without producing additional
derangement of the tissue. It is also possible that
leaves from which their natural air has been expelled
by the act of freezing, may, from that circumstance,
have their tissue too little protected from the evapo-
rating force of the solar rays, which, we know, pro-
duce a specific stimulus of a powerful kind upon those
organs.” (Hort. Trans., n. s., ii. 805.)
In our glazed houses, we have full control over the
state of the atmosphere, as regards both its moisture
and temperature, by means familiar to every gar-
dener; but the manner of applying those means, and
the causes that oppose their action, deserve to be the
subject of inquiry.
It will have been seen, from what has been already
stated upon that subject, that in general, in warm
countries, the air is occasionally at least, if not per-
manently, filled with vapour to a much greater extent
than in northern latitudes,* and, as in our glazed
houses we cultivate exclusively the natives of warm
countries, it is also obvious that, as a general rule, the
air of such houses requires, at certain periods, to be
damper than that of the external air. Those periods
* “Captain Sabine, in his meteorological researches between the
tropics, rarely found at the hottest period of the day so great a dif-
ference as 10° between the temperature of the air and the dew-
point: making the degree of saturation about -730, but most fre-
quently 5° or ‘850; and the mean saturation of the air could not
have exceeded ‘910.” (Daniell.)
OF. ATMOSPHERICAL TEMPERATURE. 143
are when vegetation is most active. Onthe other hand
countries nearer the equator are subject to seasons
of dryness, the continuance of which is often much
greater than anything we know of here in the open
air, and consequently artificial means must also be
adopted to bring about, in glazed houses, that state
of things at particular periods; namely, those of the
repose of plants. These facts afford abundant proof
of the necessity of regulating the moisture of the
atmosphere with due precision.
By throwing water upon the pavement of glass
houses, by means of open tanks of water, by reser.
voirs placed upon them, by syringing, and by other
contrivances,* the quantity of water in the air may
be easily increased, even up to the state of saturation.
But there are some circumstances, easily overlooked,
which interfere very seriously with this power, and
which, it may be conceived, may reduce it very much
below the expectations of the cultivator.
The most unsuspected of these is the destruction
of aqueous vapour, by the hot, dry, absorbent surface
of flues. The advantages derived from hot-water
pipes, or steam pipes, over brick flues, are so well
known, as not to require any evidence to prove the
fact. Gardeners explain the difference in the action
of the two, by saying that the dry heat produced by
hot-water pipes is sweeter than that given off by flues;
which is not a very intelligible expression. The fact
* A discharge of steam into a glazed house has occasionally been
employed; but the method requires much attention on the part of
\he operator, and seems inferior to other contrivances.
144 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
is, that the air of houses heated by flues is, under
equal circumstances, much drier than that where hot-
water pipes are employed ; because the soft-burnt clay
of the brick flues robs the air of its moisture, while
the unabsorbent surface of iron pipes abstracts
nothing.
Another source of dryness is the coldness of the
glass roof, especially in cold weather, when its tem-
perature is lowered by the external air, in conse-
quence of which the moisture of the artificial atmo-
sphere is precipitated upon the inside of the glass,
whence it runs down in the form of “drip.” Mr.
Daniell observes that the glass .of a hot-house, at
night, cannot exceed the mean of the external and
internal air; and, taking them at 80° and 40°, 20
degrees of dryness are kept up in the interior, or a
degree of saturation not exceeding °528. To this, in
a clear night, we may add at least 6° for the effects
of radiation, to which the glass is particularly
exposed, which will reduce the saturation to -424;
and this is a degree of drought which must be
very prejudicial. It will be allowed that this is not
an extreme case, and much more favourable than
must frequently occur during the winter season.
Some idea, he adds, may be formed of the prodi-
giously increased drain upon the functions of a plant,
arising from .an increase of dryness in the air, from
the following consideration:—If we suppose the
amount of its perspiration, in a given time, to be 57
grains, the temperature of the air being 75° and the
dew-point 70°, or the saturation of the air being ‘849,
OF ATMOSPHERICAL TEMPERATURE. 145
the amount would be increased to 120 grains in the
same time, if the dew-point were to remain station-
ary, and the temperature were to rise to 80°; or, in
other words, if the saturation of the air were to fall
to ‘726. (Hort. Trans. vi. 20.) It is well known that
the effect of maintaining a very high temperature in
hot-houses at night, during winter, is frequently
to cause the leaves to wither and turn brown, as if
scorched or burnt; and this is apparently owing to
the dryness of the air, in consequence of the above
causes.
It is evident that the mode of preventing this dry-
ing of the air by the cold surface of a glass roof will
be, either by raising the temperature of the glass,
which can only be effected by drawing a covering of
some kind over our houses at night, so as to intercept
radiation, or by double glass sashes; or else by
keeping the temperature of the air of the house as
low as possible, consistently with the safety of the
plants, and so diminishing the difference between the
temperature of the external and internal air.
A bad system of ventilation is another cause of the
loss of vapour in the atmosphere of glazed houses,
to which reference will be made in the succeeding
chapter.
It is, in all appearance, to the attention that, since
the appearance of Mr. Daniell’s paper, in 1824, upon
this subject, has been paid to the atmospherical mois-
ture of glazed houses, that the great superiority of
modern gardeners over those of the last generation is
mainly to be ascribed ; there are, however, traces of
7
146 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
the practice at a much earlier period, although, from
not understanding the theory of the practice, no
general improvement took place. In the year 1816,
an account was laid before the Horticultural Society
of a very successful mode of forcing grapes and nec-
tarines, as practised by Mr. French, an Essex farmer,
with very rude materials, and under unfavourable
circumstances. It is not a little remarkable, that,
although Mr. French himself correctly referred his
success to the skilful management of the atmospheri-
cal moisture of his forcing-houses, the subject was so
little understood at that time, that the author of the
account not only shrank from adopting the opinion,
but evidently, from the manner in which he speaks
of Mr. French’s explanation, had no idea of its just-
ness. The method itself is sufficiently remarkable to
deserve being extracted.
“ About the beginning of March, Mr. French com-
mences his forcing, by introducing a quantity of new
long dung, taken from under the cow-cribs in his
straw yard; being principally, if not entirely, cow
dung, which is laid upon the floor of his house,
extending entirely from end to end, and in width
about six or seven feet, leaving only a pathway
between it and the back wall of the house. The dung
being all new at the beginning, a profuse steam arises
with the first heat, which, in this stage of the process,
is found to be beneficial in destroying the ova of
insects, as well as transfusing a wholesome moisture
over the yet leafless branches; but which would
prove injurious, if permitted to rise in so great a
OF ATMOSPHERICAL TEMPERATURE. 147
quantity when the leaves have pushed forth. Ina
few days, the violence of the steam abates as the buds
open, and in the course of a fortnight the heat begins
to diminish ; it then becomes necessary to carry in a
small addition of fresh dung, laying it in the bottom,
and covering it over with the old dung fresh forked
up: this produces a renovated heat, and a moderate
exhalation of moist vapour. In this manner the
heat is kept up throughout the season, the fresh sup-
ply of dung being constantly laid at the bottom in
order to smother the steam, or rather to moderate the
quantity of exhalation ; for it must always be remem-
bered, that Mr. French attaches great virtue to the
supply of a reasonable portion of the vapour. The
quantity of new dung to be introduced at each turn-
ing must be regulated by the greater or smaller
degree of heat that is found in the house, as the sea-
son or other circumstances appear to require it. The
temperature kept up is pretty regular, being from 65
to 70 degrees.” (Hort. Trans., i. 245.)
In this case, which attracted much attention at the
time, it is evident that the success of the practice
arose principally out of two circumstances; firstly,
the moisture of the atmosphere was skilfully main-
tained in due proportion to the temperature; and,
secondly, a suitable amount of bottom heat was
secured. Thisis, as will be elsewhere remarked, the
principal cause of the advantages found to attend the
Dutch mode of forcing. The reporter upon Mr.
French’s practice speaks with surprise of the rudeness
of the roof of his forcing-houses, and of the nume-
148 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
rous openings into the air through the laps of the
glass and the joints of the sashes; but these were
points of no importance under the mode of manage-
ment adopted.
The impossibility of preserving any plants except
succulents, in a healthy state, for any long period, in
a sitting-room, is evidently owing to the impracticabi-
lity of maintaining the atmosphere of such a situation
in a state of sufficient dampness.*
An excess of dampness is indispensable to plants,
in a state of rapid growth, partly because it prevents
the action of perspiration becoming too violent, and
partly because under such circumstances a considera-
ble quantity of aqueous food is absorbed from the
atmosphere, in addition to that obtained by the
roots.
But it is essential to observe that, when not in
a state of rapid growth, a large amount of moisture in
the air will be prejudicial rather than advantageous to
* And the success of those who do, in spite of the adverse cireum-
stances, succeed in raising fine plants in sitting-rooms, will usually
be found to be owing to their taking great pains to keep the leaves
in a healthy condition by frequently syringing or washing them
with a sponge. One of the most successful parlor-plant amateurs
we ever knew, gave her plants “a bath,” as she called it, twice a
week. Removing them into a large closet and laying them on their
sides in a flat tub, she cleaned every pore of the upper and under
sides of the leaves by a very severe syringing with warm water.
The plants gained health, not only by the cleansing and the absorp-
tion of moisture, but by the motion of the stems and branches caused
by dashing water on them from the syringe, which in a good degree
compensated for the absence of wind-motion, s0 beneficial to the
growth of all trees and plants in the open air. A. J. D.
OF ATMOSPHERICAL TEMPERATURE. 149
a plant; if the temperature is at the same time high,
excitability will remain in a state of continued action,
and that rest which is necessary (113) will be with-
held, the result of which will be an eventual destruc-
tion of the vital energies. But, on the other hand, if
the temperature is kept low while the amount of
atmospherical moisture is considerable, the latter is
absorbed, without its being possible for the plant to
decompose it; the system then becomes, in the
younger and more absorbent parts, distended with
water, and decomposition takes place, followed by
the appearance of a crop of microscopical fungi; in
short, that appearance presents itself which is techni-
cally called * damping off.”
The skilful balancing of the temperature and mois-
ture of the air, in cultivating different kinds of plants,
and the just adaptation of them to the various seasons
of growth, constitute the most complicated and diffi-
cult part of a gardener’s art. There is some danger
in laying down any general rules with respect to this
subject, so much depends upon the peculiar habits of
species, of which the modifications are endless. It
may, however, I think, be safely stated, that the fol-
lowing rules deserve especial attention :—
1. Most moisture in the air is demanded by plants
when they first begin to grow, and least when their
periodical growth is completed.
2. The quantity of atmospheric moisture required
by plants is, ceteris paribus, in inverse proportion to
the distance from the equator of the countries which
they naturally inhabit.
150 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
3. Plants with annual stems require more than
those with ligneous stems.
4, The amount of moisture in the air most suitable
to plants at rest is in inverse proportion to the quan-
tity of aqueous matter they at that time contain.
(Hence the dryness of the air required by succulent
plants when at rest.)
CHAPTER IV.
OF VENTILATION,
By far the larger number of gardeners attach great
importance to preserving the power of ventilating
their houses abundantly, without perhaps sufficiently
considering the nature of the plants they have to ma-
nage; and, as has been justly enough said, by sup-
posing that plants require to be treated like man
himself, they consult their own feelings rather than
the principles of vegetable growth. There can be no
doubt, however, that the effect of excessive ventila-
tion is more frequently injurious than advantageous ;
and that many houses, particularly hot-houses, would
be more skilfully managed, if the power of ventilation
possessed by the gardener were much diminished.
Animals require a continual renovation of the air
that surrounds them, because they speedily render it
impure by the carbonic acid given off, and the oxygen
OF VENTILATION. 151
abstracted by animal respiration. But the reverse is
what happens to plants; they exhale oxygen during
the day, and inhale the carbonic acid of the atmo-
sphere, thus depriving the latter of that which would
render it unfit for the sustenance of the higher orders
of the animal kingdom; and, considering the manner
in which glass houses of all kinds are constructed,
the buoyancy of the air in all heated houses, would
enable it to escape in sufficient quantity to renew it-
self as quickly as can be necessary for the main-
tenance of the healthy action of the organs of vege-
table respiration: It, therefore, is improbable that
the ventilation of houses in which plants grow is
necessary to them, so far as respiration is concerned.
Indeed, Mr. Ward has proved that many plants will
grow better in confined air, than in that which is often
changed. By placing various kinds of plants in cases,
made, not indeed air-tight, for that is impossible with
such means as can be applied to the construction of a
glass house, but so as to exclude as much as possible
the. admission of the external air, supplying them
with a due quantity of water, and exposing them
fully to light, he has shown the possibility of culti-
vating. them without ventilation, with much more
success than usually attends ordinary glass-house
management.
In forcing-houses, in particular, it will be evident
from what is about to follow, that ventilation, under
ordinary circumstances, in the early spring, must be
productive of injury rather than benefit. Many gar-
deners now admit air very sparingly to their vineries
152 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
during the time that the leaves are tender, and the
fruit unformed. Some excellent stoves have no pro-
vision at all for ventilation; and we have the direct
testimony of Mr. Knight as to the disadvantage of the
practice in many cases to which it has been commonly
applied.
It may be objected, says this great horticulturist,
that plants do not thrive, and that the skins of grapes
are thick, and other fruits without flavour, in crowd-
ed forcing-houses: but in these it is probably light,
rather than a more rapid change of air, that is want-
ing; for, ina forcing-house which I have long de-
voted almost exclusively to experiments, I employ
very little fire heat, and never give air till my grapes
are nearly ripe, in the hottest and brightest weather,
further than is just necessary to prevent the leaves
being destroyed by excess of heat. Yet this mode of
treatment does not at all lessen the flavour of the
fruit, nor render the skins of the grapes thick; on
the contrary, their skins are always most remarkably
thin, and very similar to those of grapes which have
ripened in the open air. (Hort. Trans., ii. 225.)
While, however, the natural atmosphere cannot be
supposed to require changing in order to adapt it to
the respiration of plants, it is to be borne in mind that
the air of houses artificially heated may be rendered
impure by the means employed to produce heat.
Sulphurous acid gas escapes from brick flues, am-
moniacal vapour from fermenting manure, and there
may be many unsuspected sources of the introduction
of vaporous impurities; an inconceivably minute
OF VENTILATION. 158
quantity of which is enough to deteriorate the air, so
far as vegetation is concerned. Drs. Turner and
Christison found that 75455 of sulphurous acid gas
destroyed leaves in forty-eight hours; and similar
effects were obtained from hydro-chloric or muriatic
acid gas, chlorine, ammonia, and other agents, the
presence of which was perfectly undiscoverable by
the smell. We also know that the destructive pro-
perties of air poisoned by corrosive sublimate, per-
haps by its being dissolved in the vapour of a hot-
house, are not at all appreciable by the senses.
Ventilation is necessary, then, not to enable plants
to exercise their respiratory functions, provided the
atmosphere is unmixed with accidental impurities ;
but to carry off noxious vapours generated in the arti-
ficial atmosphere of a glazed house, and to produce
dryness, or cold, or both.
When the external air is admitted into a glazed
house containing a moist atmosphere, it, under ordi-
nary circumstances, is much colder than that with
which it mixes; the heated damp air rushes out at
the upper ventilators, and the drier cold air takes its
place; the latter rapidly abstracts from the plants
and the earth, or the vessels in which they grow, a
part of their moisture, and thus gives a sudden shock
to their constitution, which cannot fail to be injurious.
This abstraction of moisture is in proportion to the
rapidity of the motion of the air. But it is not mere-
ly dryness that is thus produced, or such a lowering
of temperature as the thermometer suspended in the
interior of the house may indicate; the rapid evapo-
7T*
154 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES,
ration that takes place upon the admission of dry air
produces a degree of cold upon the surface of leaves,
and of the porous earthen pots in which plants grow,
of which our instruments give no indication. To
counteract these mischievous effects, many contri-
vances have been proposed, in order to ensure the
introduction of fresh air warm and loaded with mois-
ture, such as compelling the fresh air to enter a house
after passing through pipes moderately heated, or
over hot-water pipes surrounded by a damp atmo-
sphere, and soon; the advantages of which, of course,
depend upon the objects to be attained.
If ventilation is merely employed for the purpose
of purifying the air, as is often the case in hot-houses
and in dung-pits, it should be effected by the intro-
duction of fresh air, damp and heated.
If itis only for the purpose of lowering the tempera-
ture, as in green-houses, or in the midst of summer, the
external air may be admitted without any precautions.
But it is very commonly required in the winter,
for the purpose of drying the air in houses kept at
that season at alow temperature; such, for instance,
as those built for the protection of Heaths, and many
other Cape and New Holland plants: in these cases
it should be brought into the house as near the tem-
perature of the house as possible, but on no account
loaded with moisture. One of the principal reasons
for drying the air of such houses, is to prevent the
growth of parasitical fungi, which, in the form of
mouldiness, constitute what gardeners technically call
“damp.” These productions flourish in damp air at
OF VENTILATION. 155
a low temperature, but will not exist either in dry
cold air or in hot damp air. If the air of cool green-
houses is allowed to become damp, the fungi imme-
diately spring up on the surface of any decayed
leaves, or other matter which may be present, when
they spread rapidly to the young and tender parts of
living plants; and when this happens, they consume
the juices, choke the respiratory organs, and speedily
destroy the object they attack.
Ventilation is also required in the winter in such
places as dung-pits or frames, especially those in
which salad, cucumbers, and similar plants are grown.
In those cases the object is to dry the. air, in order
that the plants may not absorb more aqueous par-
ticles than they can decompose and assimilate.
Although plants of this kind will bear a high degree
of atmospherical moisture in summer, when the days:
are long and the sun bright, and when, consequently,
(66, 67,) all their digestive energies are in full acti-
vity, yet they are by no means able to endure the
same amount in the short dark days of winter, when,
from the want of light, their powers of decomposition
or digestion are comparatively feeble. Hence, no
doubt, the advantage of growing winter cucumbers
in forcing-houses, instead of dung-frames.
One of the causes of success in the Dutch method
of winter forcing is, undoubtedly, their avoiding the
necessity of winter ventilation, by intercepting the
excessive vapour that rises from the soil, and which
would otherwise mix with the air. For this purpose
they interpose screens of oiled paper between the
156 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
earth and the air of their houses, and in their pits for
vegetables, they cover the surface of the ground with
the same oiled paper, by which means vapour is effec-
tually intercepted, and the air preserved from exces-
sive moisture.
In forcing-houses, ventilation is thought to be
required at the time when the fruit is ripening, for
the purpose of increasing the perspiration of the
plants, and, consequently, of assisting in the elabora-
tion of the secretions to which fruit owes its flavour;
but, even for this, its utility is perhaps overrated,
and it is quite certain that it may be easily carried to
excess; for if it is so powerful as to injure the leaves
by over-drying the air, an effect the reverse of what
was intended will be produced; that is to say, the
quality of the fruit will be deteriorated (64, 75).
Upon this subject Mr. Knight has made the following
observations :—‘' A less humid atmosphere is more
advantageous to fruits of all kinds, when the period
of their maturity approaches, than in the earlier
stages of their growth; and such an increase of ven-
tilation at this period, as will give the requisite
degree of dryness to the air within the house, is
highly beneficial, provided it be not increased to such
an extent as to reduce the temperature of the house
much below the degree in which the fruit had pre-
viously grown, and thus retard its progress to matu-
rity. The good effect of opening a peach-house, by
taking off the lights of its roof during the period of
the last swelling of the fruit, appears to have led
many gardeners to overrate greatly the beneficial
OF VENTILATION. 157
inflxence of a free current of air upon ripening fruits ;
for I have never found ventilation to give the proper
flavour or colour to a peach, unless that fruit was, at
the same time, exposed to the sun without the inter-
vention of glass; and the most excellent peaches
I have ever been able to raise were obtained under
circumstances where change of air was as much as
possible prevented, consistently with the admission
of light (without glass), to a single tree.” (Hort. Trans.,
ii, 227.)
It is not improbable that one of the advantages
of ventilation depends upon a cause but little
adverted to, but which certainly requires to be well
considered.
It was an opinion of Mr. Knight, that the motion
given to plants by wind is beneficial to them by ena-
bling their fluids to circulate more freely than they
otherwise would do; and in a paper printed in the
Philosophical Transactions for 1803, p. 277, he addu-
ces, in support of his opinion, many experiments and
observations; of which the following is sufficiently
striking :—
“The effect of motion on the circulation of the sap,
and the consequent formation of wood, I was best
able to ascertain by the following expedient. arly
in the spring of 1801, I selected a number of young
seedling Apple trees, whose stems were about an inch
in diameter, and whose height between the roots and
first branches was between six and seven feet. These
trees stood about eight feet from each other; and, of
course, a free passage for the wind to act on each tree
158 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
was afforded. By means of stakes and bandages of
hay, not so tightly bound as to impede the progress
of any fluid within the trees, I nearly deprived the
roots and lower parts of the stems of several trees of
all motion, to the height of three feet from the ground,
‘leaving the upper part of the stems and branches in
their natural state. In the succeeding summer, much
new wood accumulated in the parts which were kept
in motion by the wind; but the lower parts of the
stems and roots increased very little in size. Remov-
ing the bandages from one of these trees in the fol-
lowing winter, I fixed a stake in the ground, about
ten feet distant from the tree, on the east side of it;
and I attached the tree to the stake at the height of
six feet, by means of a slender pole, about twelve
feet long; thus leaving the tree at liberty to move
towards the north and south, or, more properly, in
the segment of a circle, of which the pole formed a
radius; but in no other direction. Thus circum-
stanced, the diameter of the tree from north to south
in that part of its stem which was most exercised by
the wind exceeded that in the opposite direction, in
the following autumn, in the proportion of thirteen to
eleven.”
Now, if the effect of motion is to increase the
quantity of wood in a plant, it is evident that ventila-
tion, which causes motion, must tend to produce a
healthy action in the plants exposed to it; and such a
state must also be favourable to the developement of
all those secretions upon which the organisation of
flowers, the setting of fruit, and the elaboration of
OF SEED-SOWING, 159
colour, odour, flavour, &c., so much depend. Some
suggestions by Mr. Knight, as to the manner in which
this result can be artificially produced, will be found
in the Hort. Trans., vol. iv. p.2and 8: but the sub-
ject has yet attracted little attention. (See also Hort.
Trans., new series, i. 34.)
CHAPTER V.
OF SEED-SOWING.
WHEN a seed is committed to the earth, it under-
goes certain chemical changes (14) before it can de-
velope new parts and grow. These changes are
brought about by heat and water, assisted by the ab-
sence of light. In many seeds the vital principle is
so strong, that to scatter them upon the soil, and to
cover them slightly with earth, are sufficient to ensure
their speedy germination; but in others the power
of growth will only manifest itself under very favour-.
able conditions; it is, therefore, necessary to consider
well upon what the circumstances most suitable to
germination depend.
Moisture is necessary, but not an unlimited quan-
tity. Ifseed is thrown into water and exposed to a
proper temperature, the act of germination will take
place; but, unless the plant is an aquatic, it will
speedily perish ; no doubt because its powers of respi-
160 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
ration are impeded, and itis unable to decompose the
water it absorbs, which collects in its cavities and be-
comes putrid. There must, therefore, be some
amount of water, which to the dormant as well as the
vegetating plant is naturally more suitable than any
other; and experience shows that quantity to be just
so much as the particles of earth can retain around
and among them by the mere force of attraction. To
this is to be ascribed the advantage derived from
those mixtures of peat, loam and sand, which gar-
deners prefer for their seedlings; the peat and sand
together keep asunder the particles of loam which
would otherwise adhere and prevent the percolation
of water ; the loam retains moisture with force enough
to prevent its passing off too quickly through the
wide interstices of sand and peat. If, during the de-
licate action of germination, the changes that the seed
undergoes take place without interruption, the young
plant makes its appearance in a healthy state; but,
if by irregular variations of heat, light and moisture,
the progress of germination is sometimes accelerated
and sometimes stopped, the fragile machinery upon
which vitality depends may become so much de-
ranged as to be no longer able to perform its actions,
and the seed will die. Itis for the purpose of secur-
ing uniformity in these respects, that we employ, in
delicate cases, the steady heat of a gentle hot-bed,
shaded; and, in all cases whatever, the assistance of
a coating of earth scattered over the seed.
Under what depth of earth seed should be buried
must always be judged of by the experience of a gar-
OF SEED-SOWING. 161
dener: but it should be obvious that minute seeds,
whose powers of growth must be feeble in proportion
to their size, will bear only a very slight covering;
while others, of a larger size and more vigour, will
be capable, when their vital powers are once put in
action, of upheaving considerable weights of soil.
As, however, the extent of this power is usually un-
certain the judicious gardener will take care to em-
ploy, for a covering, no more earth than is really
necessary to preserve around his seeds the requisite
degree of darkness and moisture.* Hence the com-
mon practices of sowing small seeds upon the surface
of the soil, and covering them with a coating of moss,
which may be removed when the young seedlings
are found to have established themselves. In other
cases very minute seeds are mixed with sand before
they are sown.
The latter practice is not, however, merely for the
sake of covering the seed with the smallest possible
quantity of soil, but has for its object the separation
of seeds to such a distance, that when they germinate
they may not choke upeach other. If seedlings, like
other plants, are placed so near together that they
* It may, perhaps, be as well to notice, in this place, an erroneous
opinion, not uncommonly entertained, that seeds must be “well”
buried in order that the young plants, when produced, may have
“ sufficient hold of the ground.” The fact is, that a seed, when it
begins to grow, plunges its roots downwards and throws its stem
upwards from a common point, which is the seed itself; and, con-
sequently, all the space that intervenes between the surface of the
soil and the seed is occupied by the base of the stem, and not by
roots.
162 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
either exhaust the soil of its organisable matter, or
overshadow each other so as to hinder the requisite
quantity of light, some will die in order that the
remainder may live; and this, in the case of rare
seeds, should, of course, be guarded against very
carefully.
With regard to the temperature to which a seed
should be subjected, in order to secure its germina-
tion, this, undoubtedly, varies with different species,
and depends upon their peculiar habits, and the tem-
perature of the climate of which they are native. So
far as general rules can be given upon such a subject,
it may be stated that the temperature of the earth
most favourable for germination is 50° to 55° for the
seeds of cold countries, 60° to 65° for those of “green-
house plants,” and 70° to 80° for those of the torrid
zone. No seed, however, has been known to refuse
to germinate in the last mentioned temperature, al-
though those to which such a heat is necessary will
not, in general, grow in a healthy manner in a lower
temperature. We have no exact experiments upon
this subject, except in a few cases recorded by Messrs
Edwards and Colin, by whom there is a very valu-
able set of observations upon the temperatures borne
by certain agricultural seeds (Annales des Sciences,
new series, vol. v. p. 5), the result of which may be
thus stated :—
At 446°, Wheat, Barley, and Rye could germinate.
95°, in water, for three days, four-fifths of the Wheat and Rye,
and all the Barley, were killed.
104°, in sand and earth, the same seeds sustained the tempera-
ture for a considerable time, without inconvenience.
OF SEED-SOWING. 163
At 118°, under the same circumstances most of them perished.
122°, ditto ditto, all perished.
But it was found that, for short periods of time, a
rnuch higher temperature could be borne.
At 143°6°, in vapour, Wheat, Barley, Kidneybeans, and Flax retain-
ed their vitality for a quarter of an hour; but in 27} mi-
nutes, the three last died at a temperature of 125°6°.
167°, in vapour, they all perished.
167°, in dry air, they sustained no injury.
It will be presently seen that some seeds will bear
a much higher temperature.
The foregoing observations apply to seeds in a per-
fect state of health; when they have become sickly
or feeble, from age or other causes, some precautions
become necessary, to which, under other circum-
stances, no attention requires to be paid.
When the vital energies of a seed are diminished,
it does not lose its power of absorbing water, but it is
less capable of decomposing it (14). The conse-
quence of this is, that the free water introduced into
the system collects in the cavities of the seed, and pro-
duces putrefaction; the sign of which is the rotting
of the seeds in the ground. The remedy for this is to
present water to the seed in such small quantities ata
time, and so gradually, that no more is absorbed than
the languid powers of the seed can assimilate; and to
increase the quantity only as the dormant powers of
vegetation are aroused. One of the best means of
doing this is, to sow seeds in warm soil tolerably dry ;
to trust for some time to the moisture that exists in
such earth, and in the atmosphere, for the supply re-
164 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES,
quired for germination ; and only to administer water
when the signs of germination have become visible ;
even then the supply should be extremely small. If
this is attended to, carbonic acid is very slowly form-
ed and liberated, the chemical quality of the contents
of the seed is thus insensibly altered, each act of respi-
ration may be said to invigorate it, and by degrees it
will be brought to a condition favourable to the assi-
milation of food in larger quantities. Mr. Knight
used to say that these effects were produced in no way
so well as by enclosing seeds between two pieces of
loamy turf, cut smooth, and applied to each other by
the underground sides; such a method is, however,
scarcely applicable to any except seeds of consider-
able size.*
Other expedients have occasionally been had re-
course to successfully. Where seeds are enclosed in
a very hard dry shell, it is usually necessary to file it
thin, so as to permit the embryo to burst through its
integuments when it has begun to swell. Under natu-
ral circumstances, indeed, no such operation is prac-
tised: but it is to beremembered that such seeds will
have fallen to the ground as soon as ripe, and before
their shell acquired the bony hardness that we find
after having become dry.
Sometimes it has been found useful to immerse
* The sowing of very small and delicate seeds in the open air
should be deferred until the season is so far advanced, that all pro-
bable danger from cold weather is past. Suspending a shingle or
board over the place where they are sown, by laying it upon bricks
placed edgewise, until the first leaves are perfectly formed, will be
found a great advantage in sowing all delivate seeds. A. J. D.
OF SEED-SOWING,. 165
seeds in tepid water until signs of germination mani-
fest themselves, and then to transfer them to earth:
but this process cannot be applied with advantage to
seeds in an unhealthy state; and it is only of use to
healthy seeds, by accelerating the time of growth, a
practice which may, in out-door crops, be sometimes
desirable when applied to seeds which, like the Beet,
the Carrot, or the Parsnep, will, in dry seasons, lie so
long in the ground without germinating, that they
become a prey to birds or other animals.
Of late years, the singular practice has been intro-
duced of boiling seeds, to promote germination. This
was, I believe, first recommended by Mr. Bowie, who
stated, in the Gardener's Magazine, vol. viii. p. 5, (1882,)
that ‘he found the seeds of nearly all leguminous
plants germinate more readily by having water heated
to 200°, or even to the boiling point of Fahrenheit’s
scale, poured over them, leaving them to steep and
the water to cool for twenty-four hours.” Subse-
quently, the practice has been adopted by other per-
sons with perfect success; and, some years ago, seed-
lings of Acacia lophantha were exhibited before the
Horticultural Society by the late Mr. Thomas Cary
Palmer, which had sprung from seeds boiled for as
much as five minutes. I am also acquainted with
other cases, one of the more remarkable of which was
the germination of the seeds of the Raspberry, picked
from a jar of jam, and which must therefore have
been exposed to the temperature of 230°, the boiling
point of syrup. It is difficult to understand in what
way so violent an action ean be beneficial to any
166 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
thing possessing vitality; the fact, however, is cer-
tain. As such instances of success are confined to
seeds with hard shells, it is possible that the heated
fluid may act in part mechanically by cracking the
shell, in part as a solvent of the matters enclosed in
the seed, and in part as a stimulant.
Mr. Lymburn, nurseryman at Kilmarnock, has
lately called attention to the effect produced upon
germinating seeds by alkaline substances. He states
that experiments made by Mr. Charles Maltuen, and
narrated in Brewster's Journal of Sctence, having
shown that the negative or alkaline pole of a galvanic
battery caused seeds to germinate in much less time
than the positive or acid pole, he was induced to
observe the effects on seeds of acetic, nitric, and sul-
phuric acids, and also of water rendered alkaline by
potash and ammonia. ‘In the alkaline, the seeds
vegetated in thirty hours, and were well developed in
forty; while in the acetic and sulphuric they took
seven days; and, even after a month, they had not
begun to grow in the acetic.” This experiment led
to others upon lime; ‘a very easily procured alkali,
and which he inferred to be more efficient than any
other from the well-known affinity of quick or newly
slacked lime for carbonic acid. Lime, as taken from
the quarry, consists of carbonate of lime, or lime
united to carbonic acid; but, in the act of burning,
the carbonic acid is driven off; and hence the great
affinity of newly slacked lime for carbonic acid. He
depended, therefore, upon this affinity, to extract the
carbon from the starch, assisted by moisture” (Gard.
OF. SEED-SOWING. 167
Mag., xiv. 74); and it is stated that the results were
exceedingly striking. Old Spruce Fir seed, which
would scarcely germinate at two years old, produced
a fine healthy crop when three years old, having been
first damped and then mixed with newly. slacked
lime; and, under the same treatment, an average
crop of healthy plants was obtained when the seed
was four years old. Unfortunately, the manner in
which the original experiments upon acids and alka-
lies were conducted is not explained, (it is to be
presumed that the water employed was only acidu-
lated with the acids spoken of,) and I am not aware
of the experiments having been repeated.—The last
method of promoting germination, to which it is
necessary to advert, is the mixing seeds with agents
that have the power of liberatingoxygen. It has been
shown (14) that a seed cannot germinate until the car-
bon with which it is loaded is to a considerable extent
removed; the removal of this principle is effected by
converting it into carbonic acid, for which purpose
a. large supply of oxygen is required. | Under ordi-
nary circumstances, the oxygen is furnished by the
decomposition of water by the vital forces of the
seed ; but, when those forces are languid, it has been
proposed to supply oxygen by some other means.
Humboldt employed a dilute solution of chlorine,
which has a powerful tendency to decompose water
and set oxygen at liberty, and, it is said, with great
success. Oxalic acid has also been used for the same
purpose.
Mr. Otto, of Berlin, states that he employs oxalic
168 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
acid to make old seeds germinate. The seeds are put
into a bottle filled with oxalic acid, and remain there
till the germination is observable, which generally
takes place in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours;
when the seeds are taken out, and sown in the usual
manner. Another way is to wet a woollen cloth
with oxalic acid, on which the seeds are put, and itis
then folded up and kept in a stove; by this method
small and hard seeds will germinate equally as well
as in the bottle. Also very small seeds are sown in
pots and placed in a hot-bed; and oxalic acid, much
diluted, is applied twice or thrice a day till they begin
to grow. Particular care must be taken to remove
the seeds out of the acid as soon as the least vegeta-
tion is observable. Mr. Otto found that by this means
seeds which were from twenty to forty years old
grew, while the same sort, sown in the usual manner,
did not grow at all (Gard. Mag., viii. 196): and it is
asserted by Dr. Hamilton (Jd, x. 368, 453,) and
others, that they have found decided advantages from
the employment of this substance. Theoretically
it would seem that the effects described ought to be
produced, but general experience does not confirm
them; and it may be conceived that the rapid abstrac-
tion of carbon, by the presence of an unnaturally
large quantity of oxygen, may produce effects as
injurious to the health of the seed as its too slow
destruction in consequence of the languor of the vital
principle.
The length of time that some seeds will lie in the
ground, under circumstances favourable to germi-
OF SEED-SAVING. 169
nation, without growing, is very remarkable, and
inexplicable upon any known principle, If the Haw-
thorn be sown immediately after the seeds are ripe, a
part will appear as plants the next spring; a larger
number the second year; and stragglers, sometimes
in considerable numbers, even in the third and fourth
seasons. Seeds of the genera Ribes, Berberis, and
Peeonia, have a similar habit. M. Savi is related by
De Candolle to have had, for more than ten years, a
crop of Tobacco from one original sowing; the young
plants having been destroyed yearly, without being
allowed to form their seed. This matter does not,
perhaps, concern the theory of horticulture, for
theory is incapable of explaining it; but it is a fact
that it is useful to know, because it may prevent still
living seeds from being thrown away, under the idea
that, as they did not grow the first year, they will
never grow at all.
CHAPTER VI.
OF SEED-SAVING.
THE maturation of the seed being a vital action
indispensable to the perpetuation of a species, is, in
wild plants, guarded from interruption by so many
wise precautions, that no artificial assistance is requir-
ed in the process; but in gardens, where plants. are
often enfeebled by domestication, or exposed to con-
170 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
ditions very different from those to which they are
subject’in their natural state, the seed often refuses to
ripen, or even to commence the formation of an
embryo. In such cases, the skill of gardeners must
aid the workings of nature, and art must effect that
which the failing powers of a plant are unable to bring
about of themselves.
Sterility is a common malady of cultivated plants ;
the finer varieties of fruit, and all double and highly
cultivated flowers, being more frequently barren than
fertile. This arises from several different causes.
The most common cause of sterility is an unnatural
developement of some organ in the vicinity of the
seed, which attracts to itself the organisable matter
that would otherwise be applicable to the support of
the seed. Of this the Pear, the Pine-apple, and the
Plantain are illustrative instances. The more deli-
cate varieties of Pear, such as the Gansel’s Bergamot
and the Chaumontelle, have rarely any seeds; of
Pine-apple, none, except the Enville now and then,
have seeds, and that variety, though a large one, is
of little value for its delicacy, and probably ap-
proaches nearly to the wild state of the plant; of
Plantains, few, except the wild and crabbed sorts, are
seedful. The remedy for this appears to be, in with-
holding ‘from such plants all the sources from which
their succulence can be encouraged. If, in conse-
quence of any predisposition to form succulent tissue
(on which the excellence of fruit much depends), the
organisable matter of the plant be once diverted trom
feeding the seed to those parts in which the succu-
OF SEED-SAVING. 171
lence exists, it will continue, by the action of endos-
mose, to be attracted thither more powerfully than to
any other part, and the effect of this will be the
starvation of the seed: but a scanty supply of food,
an unhealthy condition of the plant itself, or with-
holding the usual quantity of water, will all check
the tendency to luxuriance, and therefore will favour
the developement of the seed, whose feeble attracting
force is, in that case, not so likely to be overcome by
the accumulation of attracting power in the neigh-
bouring parts. Thus we see the Pine-apples are
more frequently seedful under the bad cultivation of
the Continent, than in the highly kept and skilfully
managed pineries of England. Abstraction of
branches, in the neighbourhood of fruit, has also been
occasicnally found favourable to the formation of
seed; evidently because the food that would have
been conveyed into the branches, having no outlet, is
forced into the fruit.
Another cause of sterility is the deficiency of pollen
(87) in the anthers of a given plant, as in vegetable
mules (88), which usually partake of the spermatic
debility so well known in similar cases in the animal
kingdom. It has often been found that sterility of
this kind is cured by the application, to the seedless
plant, of the vigorous pollen of another less debilitated
variety.
In some plants, such as Pelargoniums, when culti-
vated, the anthers shed their pollen before the stigma
is ready to receive its influence, and thus sterility re-
sults. All such cases are provided for, by employing
172 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
the pollen of another flower. (See Sweetin the Gar.
dener’s Magazine, vii. 206.)
An unfavourable state of the atmosphere obstructs
the action of pollen, and thus produces sterility.
Pollen will not produce its impregnating tubes in too
low a temperature, or when the air is charged with
moisture; neither, in the absence of wind or insects,
have some plants the power of conveying the pollen
to the stigma, their anthers having no special irrita-
bility, and only opening forthe discharge of the pollen,
not ejecting it with force. If we watch the Hazel, or
any of the Coniferous order, in which the enormous
quantity of pollen employed to secure the impregna-
tion of the seed renders it easy to see what happens,
it will be found that no pollen is scattered in damp
cold weather; but, in a sunny, warm, dry morning,
the atmosphere surrounding such plants is, in the im-
pregnating season, filled with grains of pollen dis-
charged by the anthers. In wet springs the crops of
fruit fail, because the anthers are not sufficiently
dried to shrivel and discharge their contents, which
remain locked up in the anther cells till the power of
impregnation is lost. In vineries and forcing-houses
generally, into which no air is admitted to disturb the
foliage, nor any artificial means employed for the
same end, and when the season is too early for the
presence of bees, flies, and other insects, the grapes
will not set: and in the frames of melons and cucum-
bers, from which insects are excluded, no seed is
formed unless the pollen is conveyed by hand, from
those flowers in which it is formed, to others in which
OF SEED-SAVING. 173
the young fruit alone is generated. In all cases of
this kind, the remedy for sterility is obvious enough
where plants exist in an artificial.condition ; but, when
they occur in the orchard or the flower- sails in the
open air, science suggests no assistance.
It sometimes happens that particular parts of plants,
distant from the fruit, are so constructed as to attract
to themselves the food intended for the fruit, and thus
to prevent the formation of seed. For example :—
The early varieties of Potato do not readily produce
seed, owing to the abstraction by their tubers of the
nutritive matter required for the support of the seed.
Mr. Knight found that by destroying the tubers in
part, as they formed, seeds were readily procured from
such varieties.*
But perhaps the most frequent cause of sterility
is the monstrous condition of the flowers of many cul-
tivated plants. It has been fully explained (84) that
the floral organs of plants are nothing more than
leaves, so modified as to be capable of performing
special acts, for particular purposes; but they are
not capable of performing those acts any longer than
they retain their modified condition; and therefore
the stamens cannot secrete pollen, when, by acciden-
tal circumstances, they are changed into leaves, as
happens in double flowers; then, there is nothing
* Vice versa, the produce of the potatoes may be much increased
by plucking off the blossoms, in which case the nutritive matter
which would have been expended upon them and the berries, or
fruit, serves to increase the size of the tubers, for which alone the
plant is cultivated. This fact, so perfectly consistent with theory,
has been completely confirmed by experiment.
174 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
to fertilise the stigma, and, of course, no seed is pro-
duced. Or the carpels themselves may be converted
into leaves, and have lost their seed-bearing property.
Double flowers in the latter case cannot possibly bear
seed; but in the condition first mentioned they may,
and often do. To bring this about, the cultivator
plants in the vicinity of his sterile flowers others of
the same species, in which a part at least of the
stamens are perfect, and they furnish a sufficiency of
pollen for the impregnation of the other flowers in
which there are no stamens.
In some cases, principally in those of Composite
flowers, the seed is formed and advanced towards
perfection, and then decays; this is owing to the
flower heads of such plants being composed, in a great
measure, of soft scales, absorbent and retentive of
moisture, to which, in their own country, they are
not exposed in the fruiting season, but by which they
are affected under the hands of the cultivator. When
the heads of such flowers are soaked with moisture,
which they cannot get rid of, the scales rot, and decay
spreads to all the other parts, and thus the production
of seed is prevented. The Chinese Chrysanthemum
is a familiar instance of this, Such plants seed rea-
dily if the flower heads are kept warm and dry; and
it is thus that the sterile Chrysanthemum has been
made seedful; that is to say, by growing it in a
dry warm winter border, protected from showers by
a roof of glass, or by using some such means of guard-
ing it; or by rearing it in a warm dry climate.
When seeds are freely produced, it is not altoge-
OF SEED-SAVING. 175
ther a subject of indifference in what way they are
saved, if it is desired that their progeny should be the
most perfect that can be obtained. Weak seeds
produce weak plants, and therefore recourse should
be had, in all delicate cases, to artificial means for
giving vigour to the seed. Jn general, the cultivator
trusts to his eye for separating the plumpest and most
completely formed seeds; or to floating them in
water, selecting only the heavy grains that, sink, and
rejecting all those which are buoyant enough to float.
But the energy of the vital principle in a seed may be,
undoubtedly, increased by abstracting neighbouring
fruits, by improving the general health of the parent
plant, by a full exposure of it to light, and by pro-
longing the period of maturation as much as is con-
sistent with the health of the fruit. It is a constant
rule that seedlings take after their parents, an unheal-
thy mother producing a diseased offspring, and a
vigorous parent yielding a healthy progeny in all
their minute gradations and modifications; and this is
so true, that, as florists very well know, semi-double
Ranunculi, Anemones, and similar flowers, will rarely
yield double varieties, while the seeds of the latter as
unfrequently give birth to semi-double degenerations.
Independently of these things, it is indispensable that
the seed of a plant, when saved, should be perfectly
ripe, if it is intended to be laid by for future sowing.
The effect of ripening is to load the seed with carbon
in the form of starch, or some such substance (102),
and to deprive it of water, conditions necessary for
its preservation: but, if a seed is gathered before
176 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
being ripe, these conditions are not secured; and, in
proportion to the deficiency ofcarbon and superabun-
dance of water, is the seed liable to perish.
The complete maturation of the seed is, however, a
disadvantage, when it has to be sown immediately
after being gathered; for the embryo is formed, and
capable of germinating, long before the period of
greatest maturity. There are two periods in the
latter part of the organisation of a seed which,
although separated by no limits, require to be distin-
guished. The first is that when the embryo is com-
pleted; and the second is when nature has, in ad-
dition, furnished it with the means of maintaining
its vitality for a long period. It is just as capable of
growing at the expiration of the first period as of the
second ; it will do so immediately if committed to the
ground, and we see it actually happening to Peas,
Beans, Corn, and other field crops, in wet summers ;
but, at the end of the second period, it cannot germi-
nate till it has relieved itself of all the carbon which,
during that period, was deposited in its tissue.
If seeds are to be preserved for a length of time, a
state of complete dryness is so necessary to them that
it has been recommended to increase it by artificial
means: not, however, by the application of heat, or
by any process like that of kiln-drying, for that would
destroy their vitality ; but by some of those chemical
processes which dry the atmosphere without raising
its temperature. It occurred to Mr. Livingstone, that
air made dry by means of sulphuric acid might be
advantageously employed for this purpose, and he
OF SEED-PACKING. 177
says that the success of his experiments was com-
plete. He placed the seeds to be dried in the pans
of Leslie’s ice machine, and carefully replaced the
receiver without exhausting the air; small seeds
were sufficiently dried in one or two days, and the
largest seeds in lessthan a week. (ort. Trans., iii.
184.)
Other contrivances might easily be adopted. Muri-
ate of lime, for instance, which has the property of
absorbing the moisture of the atmosphere, might, per-
haps, be employed with advantage in drying the air
in which seeds are placed after being gathered.
The reason why it is so important that seeds which
have to be long kept should be thoroughly dried, is,
partly because seeds have the power of decomposing
water, which causes the commencement of germina-
tion (14), and, if this happens while they are cut off
from the other means of existence, the process of
growth must be stopped, and their death will follow
and, in part, from the tendency of vegetable matter in
contact with water to putrefy, if the actions of life are
not in play.
CHAPTER VII.
OF SEED-PACKING.
Ir seldom happens that seeds are sown as soon as
they are ripe: it is sometimes desirable that they
g*
178 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
should be preserved. for long periods of time: the
power of conveying them for great distances, through
various climates, is oneof those upon which man most
depends for the improvement of the horticultural re-
sources of all countries; and for this purpose large
sums are annually expended, both by governments
and individuals. It is, therefore, an object of the first
importance to ascertain, what is not well understood,
as it would seem, namely, the causes by which the
destruction of the germinating power of seeds is
effected; for it is only by doing this that their pre-
servation can be secured.
Seeds are probably possessed of different powers of
life, some preserving their vital principle through
centuries of time, while others have but an epheme-
ral existence under any circumstances. The reasons
for this difference are unknown to us, and apparently
depend upon a first cause, over which we have,
therefore, no control; but the fact of great longevity
in some seeds is certain, and there seems no reason
why the conditions which enable them to preserve
their germinating power for long periods of time
should not be discovered and imitated.
Without admitting such doubtful cases as those of
seeds preserved in mummies having germinated, there
are many instances of seminal longevity about which
there can be no doubt. Books contain an abundance
of instances of plants having suddenly sprung up from
the soil obtained from deep excavations, where the
seeds must be supposed to have been buried for ages.
Professor Henslow says that in the fens of Cambridge-
OF SEED-PACKING. 179
shire, after the surface has been drained and the soil
ploughed, large crops of white and black mustard
invariably appear. Miller mentions a case of Plan-
tago Psyllium having sprung from the soil of an
ancient ditch which was emptied at Chelsea, although
the plant had never been seen there in the memory
of man. De Candolle says that M. Gerardin succeed-
ed in raising Kidneybeans from seed at least a hun-
dred years old, taken out of the herbarium of Tourne-
fort; and I have myself raised Raspberry plants from
seeds found in an ancient coffin, in a barrow in Dor-
setshire, which seeds, from the coins and other relics
met with near them, may be estimated to have been
sixteen or seventeen hundred years old.
In these cases, the only circumstances that we can
conceive to have operated must have been such a de-
gree of dryness as prevented the decomposition of the
seed on the one hand, and the excitement of its germi-
nating powers on the other, a moderately low tempe-
rature, and in some of them the exclusion of air; for
moisture, beat, and communication with the air, are
necessary to enable seeds to grow (14). The tendency
of moisture exposed to the air, and in contact with
inert vegetable matter, such as a torpid seed, is by de-
grees to produce decay, which rapidly spreads to the
neighbouring parts. But, if the vitality of a seed is
excited by a fitting temperature, the moisture with
which it is in contact is then decomposed, the oxygen
so obtained combines with the carbon of the seed, and
forms carbonic acid, which flies off, and by degrees re-
duces the amount of carbon lodged in the tissue of the
180 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
seed to that which is best suited for the growth of the
embryo (103) ; then, if the embryo is so situated that it
cannot obtain from the surrounding medium food upon
which to subsist, its germination stops, and, being de-
prived of its carbon, the safeguard of its vitality is re-
moved, and it perishes. If, however, the amount of
moisture in contact with a seed is very small, as in the
dry earth at the bottom of a tumulus for instance, the
temperature at the same time low, and the access of at-
mospheric air cut off, neither putrefaction nor germi-
nation is likely to occur. If seeds are exposed to a
high temperature in dryness, they will not perish un-
less the temperature rises beyond anything likely to
occur under natural circumstances. Edwards and
Colin found that even wheat, barley, and rye, inhabit-
ants of temperate countries, would bear when dry 104°
for a long time without injury, although they died in
three days in water at 95°; and a much higher pro-
longed temperature may be expected to produce no
ill effect upon seeds inhabiting hotter countries.
There is no apparent reason why the exposure of dry
seeds to the air should destroy vitality, unless the ex-
posure is very much prolonged; nor have we any
evidence to show that it does, so long as they remain
dry. The way in which the atmosphere would act
injuriously upon dormant seeds is, by its oxygen ab-
stracting their carbon; and it was formerly supposed
that the carbonic acid extricated by germinating seeds
was formed in this way. But the very valuable ob-
servations and experiments of Messrs. Edwards and
Colin (see Comptes rendus de l’ Académie des Sciences,
OF SEED-PACKING. 181
vil. 922,) show that carbonic acid is formed by the as-
sistance of the oxygen obtained by the decomposition
of water.
If we apply these considerations to the plans usually
employed for preserving artificially the vitality of
seeds, we shall find them offer a ready explanation of
the success that attends some methods of packing, and
the constant failure of others.
The great object of those who have devised means
of packing seeds for distant journeys has, in general,
been to exclude the air, and all other considerations
have been subordinate to this. Enclosure in bottles
hermetically sealed, in papers thickly coated with
wax, in tin boxes, andsimilar contrivances, have been
resorted to with this object in view: but no advan-
tage can be derived from excluding the air, and the
disadvantage is very great; for the effect of exclud-
ing the air is to include whatever free moisture seeds
may contain or be surrounded by; this moisture is
sufficient, in high temperatures, either to deprive the
seed of its carbon of preservation, or to induce decay
of the tissue, especially of the seed-coats, which have
no vitality themselves, and in either case the embryo
perishes.
Packing in charcoal has been recommended, it is
difficult to say why; and experience shows what
might have been anticipated, that it produces no other
effect than packing in earth or other dry non-con-
ducting material.
Clayed sugar has been employed, and, as it is said,
occasionally with advantage; but I have seen no in-
182 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
stance of success, and, on the contrary, its tendency
to absorb moisture from the air till it becomes capable
of fermenting, is in itself an objection to the employ-
ment of this substance.
The most common method of packing is to enclose
seeds in paper, to surround parcels of such papers
with envelopes of the same material, and to enclose
the whole in a deal box. It is in this manner that
seedsmen usually despatch their orders to India, and
other distant parts of the world. The evils of this
method have been pointed out by Dr. Falconer, in
the Proceedings of the Horticultural Society, vol. i. p.
49. “On one occasion,” he says, “I received from
England a large assortment of garden vegetable seeds,
from a London seedsman. They were packed in the
thick dark brown paper which is generally used by
grocers and seedsmen, and which, for the facility of
folding, is usually in a somewhat damp state. The
packages were nailed up in a large wooden box, with
numerous folds of this paper, and the box was then
hermetically sealed in a tin case; it then found its way
into the ship’s hold. The damp paper, which in the
temperature of England, say at 50°, would have mat-
tered little, became an important agent when the ship
got into the tropics; at about 80° the damp became a
hot vapour, and, when the seeds reached me, I found
them all in a semi-pulpy and mildewed state.”
Upon the whole, the only mode which is calculated
to meet all the circumstances to which seeds are ex-
posed during a voyage is to dry them as thoroughly
as possible, enclose them in coarse paper, and to pack
OF PROPAGATION BY EYES AND KNAURS. 183
the papers themselves very loosely in coarse canvass
bags, not enclosed in boxes, but freely exposed to the
air; and to insure their transmission in some dry
well-ventilated place. Thus, if the seeds are origi-
nally dried incompletely, they will become further
dried on their passage; if the seed paper is damp, as
it almost always is, the moisture will fly off through
the sides of the bags, and will not stagnate around the
seeds. It is true that, under such circumstances, the
seeds will be exposed to the fluctuations of tempera-
ture, and to the influence of the atmosphere; but nei-
ther the one nor the other of these is likely to be pro-
ductive of injury to the germinating principle. The
excellence of this method I can attest from my own
observation. Large quantities of seeds have been
annually transmitted from India for many years,
doubtless gathered with care, it is to be presumed
prepared with every attention to the preservation of
the vital principle, and certainly packed with all those
precautions which have been erroneously supposed
to be advantageous ; the hopelessness of raising plants
from such seeds has at length become so apparent,
that many persons have altogether abandoned the
attempt, and will not take the trouble to sow them
when they arrive. But the seeds sent from India by
Dr. Falconer, packed in the manner last described, ex-
posed to all the accidents which those first mentioned
can have encountered, have germinated so well, that
we can scarcely say that the failure has been greater
than if they had been collected in the south of Europe.
I have no doubt that the general badness of the
184 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
seeds from Brazil, from the Indian Archipelago, and
from other intertropical countries, is almost always
to be ascribed to the seeds having been originally in-
sufficiently dried, and then enclosed in tightly packed
boxes, whence the superfluous moisture had no means
of escape.
For seeds containing oily matter, which are pecu-
larly liable to destruction (by their oil becoming
rancid ?), ramming in dry earth has been found advan-
tageous; as in the case of the Mango.
CHAPTER VIII.
OF PROPAGATION BY EYES AND KNAURS.
THE power of propagating plants by any other
means than that of seeds depends entirely upon the
presence of leaf-buds (fiz. 16), or, as they are technical-
OF PROPAGATION BY EYES AND KNAURS. 185
ly called, “eyes” (52), which are in reality rudimentary
branches in close connexion with the stem. All stems
are furnished with such buds, which, although held
together by a common system, have a power of inde-
pendent existence under fitting circumstances; and,
when called into growth, uniformly produce new
parts, of exactly the same nature, with respect to each
other, as that from which they originally sprang.
Under ordinary circumstances, an eye remains fix-
ed upon the stem that generates it. There it grows,
sending woody matter downwards over thealburnum,
and a new branch upwards, clothed with leaves, and
perhaps flowers: but it occasionally happens that
eyes separate spontaneously from their mother stem,
and when they fall upon the ground they emit roots
and become new plants (p. 29. jig. 8). This happens
in several kinds of Lily, and in other genera.
Man has taken advantage of this property, and has
discovered that the eyes.of many plants, if separated
artificially from the stem and placed in earth, will,
under favourable circumstances, produce new plants,
just as such eyes would have done if they had spon-
taneously disarticulated ; hence the system of propa-
gation by eyes, an operation employed only to a
limited extent in actual practice, but which in theory
seems applicable to all plants whatever. The only
species very generally so increased are the Potato and
the Vine. Of the latter, the eye, with a small portion
of the stem adhering to it, is commonly taken as the
means of obtaining young plants; being placed in
earth, with a bottom heat of 75° or 80°, and kept in
186 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
a damp atmosphere, it speedily shoots upwards into
a branch, and at the same time establishes itself in
the soil by the developement of the requisite quantity
of roots. In order to insure success in this operation
upon the Vine, it is only necessary that the eye
should be dormant, and that a small piece of well-
ripened wood should, as has been already stated, be
separated with it; it will then grow in much the same
way and under the same circumstances as a seed.
There is no doubt that many plants could be thus
multiplied just as easily as the Vine, but it is equally
certain that a far larger number cannot be so increas-
ed. The reason of this is, probably, that such eyes
are not sufficiently excitable, and that consequently
they decay before their vital energies are roused;
and, in addition, that they do not contain within
themselves a sufficient quantity of organisable matter
upon which to exist until new roots are formed, capa-
ble of feeding the nascent branch.
Mr. Knight’s explanation of this, although in part
applicable to cuttings only, yet seems to deserve
being introduced in this place. ‘Every leaf-bud
is well known to be capable of extending itself intoa
branch, and of becoming the stem of a future tree;
but it does not contain, nor is it at all able to prepare
and assimilate, the organisable matter required for its
extension and development. This must be derived
from a different source, the alburnous substance of
the tree, which appears the reservoir, in all this tribe
of plants, in which such matter is deposited. I found
avery few grains of alburnum to be sufficient to sup-
OF PROPAGATION BY EYES AND KNAURS. 187
port a bud of the Vine, and to occasion the formation
of minute leaves and roots: but the early growth of
such plants was extremely slender and feeble, as if
they had sprung from small seeds; and the buds of
the same plant, wholly detached from the alburnum,
were incapable of retaining life. The quantity of
alburnum being increased, the growth of the buds
increased in the same proportion; and when cuttings
of a foot long, and composed chiefly of two-years old
wood, were employed, the first growth of the buds
was nearly as strong. as it would have been, if the
cuttings had not been detached from the tree. The
quantity of alburnum in every young and thriving
tree, exclusive of the Palm tribe, is proportionate to
the number of its buds; and if the number of these
were, in any instance, ascertained and compared with
the quantity of alburnous matter in the branches and
stem and roots, it would be found that nature has
always formed a reservoir sufficiently extensive to
supply every bud. But those of a cutting, under
the most favourable circumstances, must derive their
nutriment from a more limited and precarious source ;
and it is therefore expedient that the gardener should,
in the first instance, make the most ample provision
conveniently within his power for their maintenance,
and that he should subsequently attend very closely
to the economical expenditure of such provision.”
(Horticultural Transactions, ii. 115.)
In the Potato the requisite provision of organisa-
ble matter is always secured, in consequence of the
great difficulty of separating an eye of that plant,
188 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES,
without fragments of the amylaceous tuber adhering
to it.
The provision of alimentary matter may, however,
be, in some cases, disadvantageous, by promoting too
great a development of stems and leaves, of which the
Potato itself is an instance. Theoretically, the more
nutritive matter there is for the eyes, the greater crop
there will be, ceteris paribus, and so there probably is
of leaves and stems; and it would seem that whole
potatoes should be more advantageous to plant than
sets. But I have proved, by a series of numerous
experiments, that the weight of potatoes per acre
is greater, under equal circumstances, from sets than
from whole tubers, by upwards of from seven cwt. to
three tons per acre; and considerably more, on com-
parison of the clear produce, after deducting the
weight of sets employed in both cases. (Hort. Trans.
n. 8.1. 445, and it. 156.) In these instances, I sup-
posed the rankness of the vegetation from the whole
tubers to be the cause of the diminished crop, for the
stems were unable to support themselves, and were
blown about, laid, and broken by the wind.
While, however, in such plants as the Potato, all
the eyes were equally capable of forming new tubers,
it is found by experience that they do so with differ-
ent degrees of rapidity, according to the age of that
part of the stem or tuber which furnishes them. It
is stated by a writer in the Gardener's Magazine (vol.
i. p. 406), that it is well known in Lancashire to some
cultivators of the Potato, “that different eyes germi-
nate, and give their produce, or become ripe, at times
OF PROPAGATION BY EYES AND KNAURS. 189
varying very materially, say several weeks, from
each other; some being ripe or fit for use as early as
the middle of May, and others not till
June or July. This will be understood
by reference to the accompanying
sketch. The sets nearest the extremity
of the Potato (fig. 17, a) are soonest ripe,
and in Lancashire, are planted in warm
places in March or the beginning of
April, and are ready for the market
about the 12th or 15th of May. The
produce of the next sets (6) is ready in about a fort-
night after, and that from the root end (c and d) still
later. These roots and sets (from 0 to d) are usually
put together, and the extremity of the root end is
thrown aside for the pigs.” This fact, if correctly
stated, shows, not that the youngest eyes, or those
nearest the point of the Potato, are the ripest, which
is impossible, but that they ‘are more excitable, and
consequently grow more rapidly than those at the
middle or base.
Besides the cases of propagation by eyes now men-
tioned, there is another of which a notice is given by
Signor Manetti (Gardener's Magazine, vii. 663), as
practised in Italy upon the Olive. It appears that,
from old Otive trees, certain knots or excrescences,
called wovoli, are cut out of the bark, of which a por-
tion is left adhering to them, and being planted, grow
into young Olive trees. Of these I have no further
account; but it is evident that the uovoli are no other
than our knaurs, already spoken of (53) under the
190 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
name of embryo buds ; concretions found in the bark
of many, and probably of all, trees, and supposed to
have been adventitious buds developed in the bark,
and, by the pressuré of the surrounding parts, forced
into those tortuous woody masses in the shape of
which we find them. They, in general, present an
oblong or conical form, are sometimes collected into
clusters, and usually exhibit little or no appearance
* of a tendency to further growth. It is, however,
not uncommon to find them lengthening into branches
as is shown in a Poplar, for which I am indebted to
Sir Oswald Mosley; and although they have never
yet been used for the purposes of propagation, except
in the case of the Olive, there seems to be no reason
why they should not be so employed, if any neces-
sity were to arise for them. The real amount of
their powers of growth is unknown, and would be a
good subject of investigation.
CHAPTER IX.
OF PROPAGATION BY LEAVES.
In the beginning of the last century, Richard
Bradley, a Fellow of the Royal Society, published a
translation from the Dutch of Agricola, of a book
upon the propagation of plants by leaves; in which
it was asserted that, by the aid of a mastic invented
by the author, the leaves of any plant, dipped at the
OF PROPAGATION BY LEAVES. 191
stalk end into this preparation, would immediately
strike root; and the book was adorned with copper-
plates exhibiting both the process and its result,
in the form of fields stuck full of Orange leaves grow-
ing into trees.
Although this work was very absurd, yet it proba-
bly originated in the discovery that the leaves of
some plants will grow under special circumstances ;
a fact often supposed to be much more rare than
it really is. In Professor Morren’s French Transla-
tion of my Outlines of the First Principles of Horticul-
ture, Rochea falcata* is named as producing adventi-
tious buds (58) from the upper side of its leaves ; and
the Orange, the Aucuba, and the Fig, as other
instances of leaves which will multiply their species
(p. 152); the power of Bryophyllum to do the same
thing is familiar to every one. Hedwig found the
leaves of the Crown Imperial, put into a plant-press,
produce bulbs from their surface. There is a well-
known case of the same effect having been observed
in Ornithogalum thyrsoideum. M. Auguste de St.
Hilaire mentions an instance of leaf-buds generated
by fragments of the leaves of ‘ Theophrasta,” which
had been buried by M. Neumann, chief gardener
at the Garden of Plants at Paris, and:of young Dro-
seras -furnished by the leaves of Drosera intermedia.
Mr. Henry Cassini is said to have seen young plants
produced by the leaves of Cardamine pratensis ; Eng-
lish botanists know that offsets spring from the mar-
gins of the leaves of Malaxis paludosa; in our stoves
* See, also, De Candolle’s Physiologie Végétale, ii. 672.
192 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
we see Ferns of many kinds, especially Woodwardia
radicans, propagating themselves by offsets from the
leaves; Mr. Turpin tells us that floating fragments
of Watercress leaves, cut up by a species of Phryga-
nea for its nest, “produce presently from their base,
and below the common petiole, at first two or three
colourless roots, then in their centre a small conical
bud, green, in which are found, or rather from which
successively arise, all the aérial parts of a new Water-
cress plant, while the roots multiply and lengthen.”
(Comptes rendus, 1839, sem. 2, 488.) Mr. Flourens
also mentions a case of Purslane, whose leaves,
divided into three, produced as many new plants,
each having a root, stem, and leaves. In the Zrans-
actions of the Horticultural Society, is an account of
a Zamia each of whose scales produced a new plant,
when the central part of the stem was decayed.
Finally, the following case is named in the same
work (vol. v. p. 442,) by Mr. Knight :—
“Tn an early part of the summer, some leaves of
Mint (Mentha piperita), without any portion of the
substance of the stems upon which they had grown,
were planted in small pots, and subjected to artificial
heat, under glass. They emitted roots, and lived
more than twelve months, having assumed nearly the
character of the leaves of evergreen trees; aud upon
the mould being turned out of the pots, it was found
to be everywhere surrounded by just such an inter-
woven mass of roots as would have been emitted by
perfect plants of the same species. These roots pre-
sented the usual character of those organs, and con-
OF PROPAGATION BY LEAVES. 193
sisted of medulla, alburnum, bark, and epidermis;
and as the leaf itself, during the growth of these, in-
creased greatly in weight, the evidence that it gene-
rated the true sap which was expended in their for-
mation appears perfectly conclusive.”
‘In our gardens, we know of many other cases of
the same kind. Hoya is a common instance, and three
others are here. figured (jig. 18); viz., Gesnera (a),
194 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
Clianthus puniceus (5), Gloxinia speciosa (c). In these,
and all such cases, the first thing that happens is an
excessive development of the cellular tissue, which
forms a large convex “callus” at the base; from
which, after a time, roots proceed; and by which
eventually a leaf-bud, the commencement of a new
stem, is generated.
It is not surprising that leaves should possess this
quality, when we remember that every leaf does the
same thing naturally while attached to the plant that
bears it; that is to say, forms at its base a bud which
is constantly axillary to itself. Leaves, however,
have not been often employed as the means of pro-
pagating a species; and it is probable that most
leaves, when separated from their parent, are incapa-
ble of doing so, for reasons which we are not as yet
able to explain. The most common case of their em-
ployment is in the form of the scales of a bulb, which
will, with some certainty, produce new plants under
favourable circumstances. Those circumstances are,
a strong bottom heat, moderate moisture, and a rich
stimulating soil,
When plants are produced by leaves under ordinary
circumstances, the conditions most favourable to their
doing so are of the same nature. A moderate amount
of moisture prevents their dying from perspiration or
perishing from decay ; a good bottom heat stimulates
their vital forces, and causes them to exercise what-
ever power they possess; and, in addition, they are
covered by a slightly shaded bell glass, which main-
tains around them an atmosphere of uniform humi-
OF PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS. 195
dity, and, at the same time, cuts off the approach of
those direct solar rays, which, acting as a stimulus to
perspiration, would have a tendency to exhaust the
leaves of their fluid before they could organize, at
their base, the new matter from which the leaf-bud is
evidently produced.
CHAPTER X.
OF PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS.
THIs, which is the most common of all modes of
artificial propagation except grafting, depends upon
essentially the same principle as propagation by eyes;
that is to say, the pieces of a plant called cuttings
possess a power of growth in consequence of their
bearing leaf:buds or eyes upon their surface. In
striking by eyes, we have the great difficulty to en-
counter of keeping the eye active till it has organised
roots with which to feed itself; the earth furnishes
such a supply unwillingly or unsuitably, nature in-
tending that the bud should, in the first instance, be
supported by the soluble nutriment ready prepared
and lodged in its immediate vicinity, in the pith or
some other part of the stem. For this reason, cut-
tings, which consist of eyes and the part containing
their proper aliment, usually strike root more freely
than eyes by themselves,
This being so, it is plain that a cutting is only capa-
ble of multiplying a plant when it bears buds upon its
196 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
surface; and as the stem is the only part upon which
buds certainly exist, so the stem is the only part from
which cuttings should be prepared. And again, as the
internode, or that space of the stem which intervenes
between leaf and leaf, has no buds, their station being
confined to the axil of
the leaves, a cutting pre-
pared from an internode
only is as improper as
one from the root. It
is no doubt true, that
we constantly propagate
plants from pieces of
what are called roots, as
in the Potato, or the Scir-
pus tuberosus (fig. 19);
but such roots are, in
reality, the kind of stem called a tuber (51); and, in
like manner, other cases of similar propagation are
also successful, because the part called a root is, in
reality, an underground stem covered with the rudi-
ments of leaves, to each of which an eye belongs.
The Rose, the Lilac, and many other plants, have
subterranean stems, cuttings of which will there-
fore answer the purpose of propagation. It will
also occasionally happen, that, owing to unknown
causes, morsels of the true root will generate what
are called adventitious buds; and hence we do
occasionally see the root employed for propagation,
as in Cydonia japonica ;* but these are rare and ex-
* Also the Paper Mulberry, the Paulownia, &e A. J.D.
OF PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS. 197
ceptional cases, and by no means affect the general
rule. Mr. Knight attempted to account for this, by
supposing that the powers which roots of various
forms, and cuttings, and other detached parts of
plants, possess of emitting foliage, “ are wholly, and
in all cases, dependent upon the presence of true sap
previously deposited within them.” (Hort. Trans., v.
242.) But this is a very obscure expression, and
does not seem to throw any light upon the subject.
When the vine grows in a very warm damp stove,
its stem emits roots into the air; the same thing hap-
pens to the Maize on the lower part of its stem; and
in these and all such cases, the roots are found to be
emitted from buds. Hence it has been inferred that
the roots of a plant are as much productions of buds
as branches are, and that the stem is nothing more than
a, collection of such roots held together under the form
of wood and bark. The present is not the place for
a renewal of this discussion, for the arguments in
favor of and opposed to which, the reader is referred
to my Introduction to Botany, 3d edit. p. 309, &. It
is sufficient here to remark that the question turns
upon whether the buds and leaves actually them-
selves produce roots, or merely furnish the organis-
able matter out of which roots are formed; and that,
therefore, for the purpose of horticulture, either the
one or the other is equally capable of explaining the
facts connected with cuttings.*
* The following curious fact, recorded by Mr. Livingstone, which
seems to have escaped observation, deserves to be mentioned here :—
“The Pterocarpus Marsupium, one of the most beautiful of the large
198 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
As far as physiology can explain the operation of
propagation by cuttings, it appears that roots are
formed by the action of leaves; that branches are de-
veloped from the buds; and that the buds are main-
tained by the suitable aliment stored up in the stem.
Every thing beyond this seems to be connected with
specific constitutional powers, of which science can
give no explanation.
In considering what conditions are most favourable
to the maintenance of a cutting in the state required,
in order to enable it to become a young plant, it will
be most convenient, in the first place, to examine the
rationale of some one method which is known to be
successful. For this purpose, the following detail, by
trees of the East Indies, and which grows in the greatest perfection
about Malacea, affording, by its elegant wide-expanding boughs,
and thick-spreading pinnated leaves, a shade equally delightful
with the far-famed Tamarind tree, is readily propagated by cuttings
of all sizes, if planted even after the pieces have been cut for many
months, notwithstanding they appear quite dry, and fit only for the
fire. I have witnessed some of three, four, five, six, and seven
inches in diameter, and ten or twelve feet long, come to be fine trees
ina few years. While watching the transformation of the log into
the tree, I have been able to trace the progress of the radicles from
the buds, which began to shoot from the upper part of the stump a
few days after it had been placed in the ground, and marked their
progress till they reached the earth. By elevating the bark, minute
fibres are seen to descend contemporaneously as the bud shoots into
a branch. In a few weeks these are seen to interlace each other.
In less than two years the living fibrous system is complete; in five
years no vestige of its log origin can be perceived; its diameter
and height are doubled, and the tree is in all respects as elegant
and beautiful as if it had been produced from seed.” (Hort. Trans.,
iv. 226.)
OF PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS. 199
Mr. Knight, of his mode of striking the Mulberry, is
selected :—
‘A considerable number of cuttings were taken
from the most vigorous bearing branches of a Mul-
berry tree, in the middle of November, 1812, and
were immediately reduced to the length adapted to
small pots, in which I proposed them ultimately to be
planted, and which were between four and five inches
deep. Each cutting was composed of about two parts
of two-years-old wood, that is, wood of the preceding
year, and about one third of yearling wood, the pro-
duce of the preceding summer; and the bottom of
each was cut so much aslope, that its surface might
be nearly parallel with that of the bottom of the pot
in which it was to be placed.
“The cuttings were then inserted in the common
ground, under a south wall, and so deeply immersed
in it, that one bud only remained visible above its
surface ; and in this situation they remained till April.
At this period the buds were much swollen, and the
upper ends of the cuttings appeared similar to those
of branches which had been shortened in the preced-
ing autumn, and become capable of transmitting any
portion of the ascending fluid. The bark at the lower
ends had also begun to emit those processes which
usually precede the production ofroots. The cuttings
were now removed to the pots to which they had
been previously fitted, and placed in a moderate hot-
bed; and a single bud only of each cutting remained
visible above the mould, and that being partially co-
vered ; and in this situation they vegetated with so
200 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES
much vigour, and emitted roots so abundantly, that I
do not think one cutting in a hundred would fail,
with proper attention. Some of the pots were placed
round the edges of a melon bed, which affords a very
eligible situation where a few plants only are want-
ed.” (Horticultural Transactions, ii. 117.) In this
case success appears to have depended upon the fol-
lowing circumstances :—
1. The cuttings were prepared in November, at the’
end of the season of growth, when all the organisable
matter required for the cutting was formed, and
locked up in the proper places in itsinterior. It was
not necessary, therefore, to take any means of insur-
ing a further supply of aliment. But had it been
otherwise, that is to say, if the cuttings had been pre-
pared in the summer, in the midst of their growth, it
would have been indispensable to allow a leaf or two
to remain attached to the upper end of the cutting,
to assist in the formation of alimentary matter.
2. Although but one eye was allowed to grow, yet
the cuttings themselves were four or five inches long,
and they consisted, to the extent of two thirds, of
two-years-old wood. By this means the quantity
of food for the nascent branch was intended to be so
great as to insure it against suffering from an inade-
quate supply, until it had formed roots. ‘The im-
portance of this has already been shown by Mr.
Knight in a previous part of this Book.
3. The cuttings were taken off in November, and
not in the spring.* This gave them time to form
* [Taking off the cuttings in November is unquestionably the
OF PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS. 201
granulations of cellular substance or the lower or
wounded end, before the powers of absorption by the
alburnum were aroused, and so to protect themselves
against a too copious supply cf aqueous matter before
the growing bud could dispose of it by its leaves
(64). This protection is afforded by the thinnest
stratum of new cellular tissue, which covers over the
ends of the wounded vessels, and acts as a vital filter
through which all the crude food must pass from the
soil. 7
4, The lower end of the cuttings was so divided as
to be parallel with the bottom of the pot; and it
appears from the context, although it is not expressly
so stated, that this end was to touch the bottom of
the pot.» The importance of this precaution is well
known; cuttings of the Lemon and Orange, which
are by no means willing to strike if it is neglected,
become young plants readily if it is attended to; and
in all difficult cases it is had recourse to. The object
of it seems to be to place the absorbent or root end
of the cutting in a situation where, while it is com-
pletely drained of water, it may, nevertheless, be in
better practice in so mild a climate as that of England; and is pre-
ferable, even in this country, with all very hardy shrubs, as the
Currant, &e. But in the case of those which are more tender in the
bark, as some of the varieties of the common Althea, the severe
frost of our winters often seriously injures or destroys the cuttings.
When of moderate size, they are also liable to be thrown out by the
heaving of the ground in spring: we therefore generally prefer
early spring planting, for cuttings, But they often succeed best
when they are taken off in November, kept in damp mould in the
cellar through the winter, and carefully planted in March or April.
a0 DB)
g*
202 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
the vicinity of a never-failing supply of aqueous
vapour. If it were surrounded by earth, water would
readily collect about it in a condensed state, and the
vessels being all open in consequence of being cut
through, would rise at once into the interior; but
the application of the root end immediately to the
earthen bottom of the pot, with which it is so cut as
to be nearly parallel, necessarily prevents any such
accumulation and introduction of water, unless over-
watering is allowed, and this all good gardeners
will take care to avoid. An ingenious plan of Mr.
Forsyth’s is intended to answer this purpose rather
more perfectly. He
puts a small sixty pot
(jig. 20, a d) into one
of larger size, having
first closed up the bot-
tom of the former with
clay (a); then having
filled the bottom of the
outer pot with crocks,
he fills up the sides
(ec c) with propagating
soil, in which his cuttings are so placed that their
root ends rest against the sides of the inner pot; the
Jatter is then filled with water, which passes very
slowly through the sides until it reaches the cuttings.
(See Gardener's Magazine, vol. xi. p. 564.) In many
cases, especially in striking such plants as Heaths,
gardeners employ a stratum of silver sand, placed
immediately over the earth in which such plants
OF PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS. 203
love to grow. The cuttings are inserted into the
sand, but so near the earth that the roots, presen.
after their emission, find themselves in it, and conse-
quently in contact with a source of food. This sand
answers the same purpose as placing the root end of
the cutting in contact with the pot, and is an ingeni-
ous device for doing that with small cuttings, which
cannot be conveniently done otherwise except with
large ones.
5. The cuttings are eventually placed in a hot-
bed. This is for the purpose of giving them a stimu-
lus at exactly that time when they are most ready to
receive it. Had they been forced at first in bottom
heat, the stimulus would have been applied to cut-
tings whose excitability had not been renovated
(118), and the consequence would have been a deve-
lopement of the powers of growth so languid, that
they probably would not have survived the coming
winter: but, the stimulus being withheld till the cut-
tings are quite ready for growth, it tells with the
utmost possible effect.
In addition to these comments upon an excellent
mode of striking cuttings of many kinds, it is neces-
sary to add some observations upon the object of
additional precautions often taken by gardeners.
Cuttings are covered by bell glasses, whose edge is
pressed into the earth. This is for the purpose of
preserving a uniform degree of humidity in the
atmosphere breathed by the cuttings. It is gene-
rally necessary to leave one or more leaves upon
a cutting, in order to generate organisable matter,
204 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
and to assist in the formation of roots; but this is a
very delicate operation, for, if the leaf is allowed
to suffer by excessive perspiration, the cuttings must
necessarily perish (75). To maintain a steady saturat-
ed atmosphere around a cutting stops this
danger, and hencetheuse of abell glass. A
double glass has been lately recommended
(fig. 21); butif this precaution is of any
value, it must be, not because it main-
tains an even temperature, which is
injurious rather than useful, but because it prevents
condensation upon the inner bell glass, and the con-
sequent abstraction of atmospheric moisture, and pro-
bably acts at the same time as a kind of shade.
Notwithstanding the precaution of covering cut-
tings with a bell glass, shade is also necessary, as a
further security against perspiration ; for light acts as
a specific stimulus (71), whose effects are very diffi-
cult to counteract. It must, however, be employed
with great caution; for, if there is not light enough,
the leaves attached to the cuttings cannot form that
organisable matter out of which roots are produced.
All gardeners know that the root end of a cutting
should be close below a leaf-bud; this is to facilitate
the emission of roots by the buds, which emission
must necessarily take place with greater or less diffi-
culty in proportion as their exit is facilitated or imped-
ed by the pressure of bark on them.*
* [The amateur will find it advantageous to take off the cutting,
when delicate or short, close up to the main stem, so as to preserve
the collar or enlarged portion of wood at the base of the branch.
OF PROPAGATION BY CUTTINGS. 205
No further precautions are taken with cuttings,
nor does it at first sight appear possible to suggest
any; nevertheless, the enormous constitutional dif-
ference among plants is such, that, while numerous
species will strike without any difficulty under almost
any circumstances, with the wood ripe or half-ripe,
just formed or aged, there are many others which no
art has yet succeeded in converting into plants; and
it is-by no means uncommon to find that, out of a
potful of cuttings of the same species, apparently all
alike and subjected to exactly the same treatment,
one will grow and the remainder fail. Itis, therefore,
one of the most probable of all things, that the prin-
ciples of striking cuttings are still very imperfectly
understood, and that this is one of the points of
horticulture in which there is the greatest room for
improvement.
It may be worthy of inquiry whether bell glasses
of different colours will not produce different effects
upon cuttings, in consequence of their different power
of transmitting light. It has been shown by Dr.
Daubeny, in a very interesting paper in the Philoso-
phical Transactions for 1836, page 149, that glass of
different colours exercises very different effects upon
the plants exposed to the rays of solar light passing
through it; that both the exhalation and absorption
of moisture by plants, so far as they depend upon the
influence of light, are affected in the greatest degree
This consists of a collection of latent buds or fibres, from which
roots are emitted with much greater facility than from any other
portion. A. J. D.]
206 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES,
by the most luminous rays; and that all the functions
of the vegetable economy, which are owing to the
presence of this agent, follow in that respect the same
law. In these experiments, it was ascertained that
the glass employed admitted the passage of the rays
of light in the following proportions:
Transparent. Orange. Red. Blue. Purple. Green.
Luminous rays 7 6 4 4 3 5
Calorifie rays q 6 5 8 4 2
Chemical rays vi 4 0 6 6 3
M. Decaisne found, during some experiments to
ascertain the effect of light in causing the production
of colouring matter in the Madder plant, that when
the lower parts of a plant were inclosed in cases
glazed at the side with transparent green, red, or yel-
low glass, the leaves and stem of the part surrounded
by red glass became pallid, and exhibited signs of
suffering in a greater degree than under the other
colours, but all were affected more or less.* (Hecher-
ches sur la Garance, p. 23.)
We, however, require very different experiments
from any yet instituted, before we can proceed to draw
practical conclusions as to the relative effects upon
plants of glass of different colours. We do not know
what the effect is of the calorific and chemical rays,
and therefore we cannot say what may be the advan-
tage or disadvantage of their action upon plants.
As, however, the object of the cultivator is to protect
* The nature of these experiments has been misapprehended in
the translation, by Mr. Francis, of Meyen’s Report on Vegetable
Physiology, for 1837, p. 51.
OF PROPAGATION BY LAYERS AND SUCKERS. 207
his cuttings from too much light, and at the same
time to give them enough to enable them to perform
their digestive functions steadily, there can be little
doubt that transparent glass is inferior to that of ano-
ther colour.
Ula Pilar gobs
OF PROPAGATION BY LAYERS AND SUCKERS.
Wirt regard to layers, there is but little which it
is necessary to say regarding them, if what has been
stated respecting eyes, leaves, and cuttings, has been
rightly understood and well considered. A layer isa
branch bent into the earth, and half cut through at
the bend, the free portion of the wound being called
“a tongue.” Itis, in fact, a cutting only partially se-
parated from its parent.
The object of the gardener is to induce the layer to
emit roots into the earth at the tongue. With this
view he twists the shoot half round, so as to injure
the wood-vessels ; he heads it back so that only a bud
or two appears above ground; and, when much nicety
is requisite, he places a handful of silver sand round
the tongued part; then pressing the earth down with
his foot, so as to secure the layer, he leaves it without
further care. The intention of both tongueing and
twisting is to prevent the return of sap from the layer
208 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
into the main stem, while a small quantity is allowed
to rise out of the latter into the former; the effect of
this being to compel the returning sap to organize it-
self externally as roots, instead of passing downwards
below the bark as wood. The bending back is to
assist in this object, by preventing the expenditure of
sap in the formation, or rather completion, of leaves ;
and the silver sand is to secure the drainage so neces-
sary to cuttings.
In most cases, this is sufficient; but it must be
obvious that the exact manner in which the layering
is effected is unimportant, and that it may be varied
according to circumstances. Thus, Mr. James Munro
describes a successful method of
layering brittle-branched plants
by simply slitting the shoot at
the bend, and inserting a stone
at that place (Gardener's Maga-
zine, ix. 302): and Mr. Knight
found that, in cases of difficult
_ rooting, the process is facilitated
by ringing the shoot just below
the tongue, about midsummer,
when the leaves upon the layers
had acquired their full growth
(Hort. Trans., 1. 256); by which
means he prevented the passage
, of the returning sap further
downwards than the point in-
tended for the emission of roots.
It will sometimes happen that
OF PROPAGATION BY LAYERS AND SUCKERS. 209.
the branch of a plant cannot be conveniently bent
downwards into the earth; in such cases, the earth
may be elevated to the branch by various contri-
vances, as is commonly done by the Chinese. (jig.
22.) When this is done, no other care is necessary
than that required for layers, except to keep the earth
surrounding the branch steadily moist.
Suckers are branches naturally thrown up by a
plant from its base, when the onward current of
growth of the stem is stopped. Every stem, even the
oldest, must have been once covered with leaves;
each leaf had a bud in its axil; but, of those buds,
few are developed as branches, and the remainder
remain latent or perish. When the onward growth of
a plant is arrested, the sap is driven to find new out-
lets, and then latent buds are very likely to be deve-
loped; in fact, when the whole plant is young, they
Inust necessarily shoot forth under fitting circum-
stances; the well-known effect of cutting down a tree
is an exemplification of this. Such branches, if they
proceed from under ground, frequently form roots at
their base, when they are employed.as a means of
propagation ; and, in the case of the Pine-apple, they
are made use of for the same purpose, although they
do not emit roots till they are separated from the pa-
rent. Gardeners usually satisfy themselves with tak-
ing from their Pine-apple plants such suckers as are
produced in consequence of the stoppage of onward
growth by the formation of the fruit: but these are
few in number, and not at all what the plant is
capable of yielding. Instead of throwing away the
210 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
“stump” of the Pine apple, it should be placed in a
damp pit, and exposed to a bottom heat of 90° or
thereabouts, when every one of the latent eyes will
spring forth, and a crop of young plants be the re-
sult. Mr. Alexander Forsyth, a very sensible writer
upon these subjects, pointed this out some years since
in the Gardener’s Magazine (xii. 594); and there can
be no doubt that his observations upon the folly of
throwing away stumps are perfectly correct both in
theory and practice.
The practice of scarring the centre of bulbs, the
heads of Echinocacti and such plants, and the crown
of the stem of species like Litteea geminiflora, in all
which cases suckers are the result, is explicable upon
the foregoing principles.
CHAPTER XIL
OF PROPAGATION BY BUDDING AND GRAFTING.
THESE operations consist in causing an eye or a
cutting of one plant to grow upon some other plant,
so that the two, by forming an organic union, become
a new and compound individual. The eye, in these
cases, takes the name of bud, the cutting is called a
scion, and the plant upon which they are made to
grow is named the stock.
Propagation by eyes and cuttings is, therefore, the
same as budding and graftmmg, with this important
OF PROPAGATION BY BUDDING AND GRAFTING. 211
difference, that in the one case the fragments of a plant
are made to strike root into the inorganic soil, and to
grow on their own bottom, as the saying is, while in
the other they emit the equivalent of roots into liv-
ing organic matter. In like manner, the operation of
inarching, or causing the branch of one plant to
remain attached to its parent, and at the same time to
grow upon the branch of another tree, is analogous
to layering.
The objects of these operations are manifold. Many
plants, such as the Pear and the Apple, will bud or
graft freely, but are difficult to strike from cuttings.
Species which are naturally delicate become robust
when “worked” on robust stocks; and the conse-
quence is a more abundant production of flowers and
fruit; thus the more delicate kinds of Vines produce
larger and finer grapes when worked upon such coarse,
robust sorts as the Syrian and Nice. The Double
yellow Rose, which so seldom opens its flowers, and
whieh will not grow at all in many situations, blos-
soms abundantly, and grows freely, when worked
upon the common China Rose. (See Hort. Trans. v.
370.) The peculiar qualities of some plants can only
be preserved by working: this is especially the case
with certain kinds of variegated Roses, which retain
their gay markings when budded, but become plain
if on their own bottom. (Jb. 492.) Fruit may be ob-
tained from seedling plants by these processes much
earlier than by any others, and thus many years’ un-
certain expectation may be saved : indeed, Mr. Knight
ascertained that it is possible to transfer the blossom-
212 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
buds of one plant to another, so as to obtain flowers
or fruit from them immediately. He thus fixed on
the Wild Rose the flower-buds of Garden Roses,
“and these buds, being abundantly supplied with
nutriment, afforded much finer roses than they would
have done had they retained their natural situation.”
He repeated many similar experiments upon the
Pear and Peach trees with similar success; but, in
the case of the Pear, he found that if the buds were
inserted earlier than the end of August or begin-
ning of September, they became branches and not
flowers.
The manner in which these operations may be
practised is exceedingly various, and an abundance
of fanciful methods have been devised, for an account
of which the reader is referred to Thouin’s Mono-
graphie des Greffes; to the article “Greffe” by the
same author, in the Nouveau
Cours complet d’ Agriculture,
&c., edition of 1822; to Lou-
don’s Encyclopedia of Garden-
ing, part ii.; and to the Gar-
dener’s Magazine, vol. x. p.
305. I shall only -here de-
scribe the commoner and more
important methods.
BuDDING consists in intro-
ducing a bud of one tree, with
a portion of bark adhering
to it, below the bark of ano-
ther tree. In order to effect
OF PROPAGATION BY BUDDING. 218
this, a longitudinal incision is made through the bark
of the stock down to the wood, and is then crossed at
the upper end by a similar cut (fig. 28, a), so that the
whole wound resembles the letter T. Then from the
scion is pared off a bud with a portion of the bark
(fig. 28, 6), and the latter is pushed below the bark
of the stock until the bud is actually upon the naked
wood of the stock; the upper lips of the wound in
the stock and that of the bud are made to coincide,
the whole are fastened down by a ligature, and the
operation is complete.
By these means we gain the important end of
bringing in close contact a considerable surface of
young organising matter. The organisation of wood
takes place on its exterior, and that of bark on its
interior surface, and these are the parts which are
applied to each other in the operation of budding;
in addition to which the stranger bud finds itself, in
its new position, as freely in communication with ali-
mentary matter, or more so, than on its parent branch.
A union takes place of the cellular faces, or horizon.
tal system, of the stock and bark of the bud, while
the latter, as soon as it begins to grow, sends down
the woody matter, or vertical system, through the
cellular substance. In consequence of the horizontal
incision, the returning sap of the scion is arrested in
its course, and accumulates a little just above the new
bud, to which it is gradually supplied as it is required.
Sometimes the whole of the wood of the bud below
the bark is allowed to remain; and, in that case,
coniact between the organising surfaces of the stock
214 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
and scion does not take place, and the union of the
two is much less certain: as it is, however, usually
practised with tender shoots before the wood is con-
solidated, the contact spoken of is of less moment.
Tn all cases, a portion of the wood of the bud must
be left adhering to it, or the bud will perish ; because
its most essential part is the young woody matter in
its centre, and not the external surface, which is a
mere coating of bark.*
In the Agricultural Journal of the Pays Bas for
October, 1824, it is recommended to reverse the
usual mode of raising the bark for inserting the buds,
and to make the cross cut at the bottom of the slit,
instead of at the top, as is generally done in Britain.
The bud is said rarely to fail of success, because it
receives abundance of the descending sap, which it
cannot receive when it is under the cross cut. This
explanation is unintelligible, and there is no ap-
parent advantage in the method; it is, however,
practised by the orange-growers of the South of
France.
Mr. Knight was accustomed on some occasions to
employ two distinct ligatures to hold the bud of his
Peach trees in its place. One was first placed above
the bud inserted; and upon the transverse section
* [This is the universal opinion, but it is not always practically
true; for if the operation be performed at a favorable period, when
the tree abounds with sap, the space left by extracting the woody
matter will be almost immediately filled by a new deposit. But
leaving the wood in the bud, in working fruit-trees, is the general
and most successful practice. A. J. D.]
OF PROPAGATION BY BUDDING. 215
through the back; the other, which had no further
office than that of securing the bud, was employed in
the usual way. As soon as the bud had attached
itself, the ligature last applied was taken off: but the
other was suffered to remain. The passage of the
, sap upwards was in consequence
much obstructed; and buds inserted
in June began to vegetate strongly
in July: when these had afforded
shoots about four inches long, the
remaining ligature was taken off to
permit the excess of sap to pass on*
and the young shoots were nailed to
the wall. Being there properly ex-
posed to light, their wood ripened
well, and afforded blossoms in the
succeeding spring.
Flute-budding (fig. 24) is not
practised in this country, but de-
serves to be mentioned. It consists
of peeling off a ring of bark from
the stock, just below a terminal
bud; replacing it by a similar ring,
with a bud or two upon it, taken
* Nurserymen and others find this tyifg with double ligature of
great service in budding the plum. The difficulty in working this
tree arises from the tendency of the upper part of the bud to curl up
and detach itself after the ordinary single tie is taken off, and the
union apparently complete. By leaving on the upper ligature a
fortnight after the lower one, this tendency to rupture is prevented,
and the upper bandage may then be removed with safety, and
before the bud has been excited into growth. A. J. D.
216 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
from a scion; and binding down the whole. This
is performed only in the spring, and has the advan-
tage of being so contrived that the stranger bud
is placed immediately below that part of a branch
where processes of organisation are most active,
namely, below a central bud of the stock; and from
occupying all the circumference, it must necessarily
receive the whole of the alimentary and organised
matter sent downwards by that bud. It isemployed
in Bavaria for the Mulberry.* (See Gard. Mag. v.
425.)
In GRAFTING no attempt is made to apply the inner
surface of the bark of a scion to the outer sur-
™, face of the wood of the stock ; but the contact
m™ is effected by the wood of the two, and their
@ bark only joins at the edges. Whip-grafting
(fig. 25) is the commonest kind; it is per-
formed by heading down a stock, then paring
one side of it bare for the space of an inch
or so, and cutting down obliquely at the
upper end of the pared part, towards the pith;
the scion is levelled obliquely to a length
corresponding with the pared surface of the
stock, and an incision is made into it near
the upper end of the wound obliquely up-
wards, so as to form a “tongue,” which is
forced into the corresponding wound in the
stock ; care is then taken that the bark of the
scion is exactly adjusted to that of the stock,
and the two are bound firmly together.
* [The success of thia practice will be found to depend mate-
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 217
Here the mere contact of the two enables the sap
flowing upwards through the stock to sustain the life of
the scion until the latter can develope its buds, which
then send downwards their wood; at the same time
the cellular system of the parts in contact unites by
granulations ; and, when the wood descends, it passes
through the cellular deposit, and holds the whole toge-
ther. The use of “tongueing” is merely to steady the
scion, and to prevent its slipping. The advantage of
this mode of grafting is the quickness with which it
may be performed; the disadvantage is, that the sur-
faces applied to each other are much smaller than can
be secured by other means. It is, however, a great
improvement upon the old crown-grafting, still em-
ployed in the rude unskilful practice of some Conti-
nental gardeners, but expelled from Great Britain ;
which consists of nothing more than heading down a
stock with an exactly horizontal cut, and splitting it
through the middle, into which is forced the end of
a scion cut into the form of a wedge; when the whole
are bound together. In this method the split in the
stock can hardly be made to heal without great care:
the union between the edges of the scion and those
rially upon choosing the exact time or seasgn for performing the
operation. In some trees, if it be attempted a few days earlier
or later than « certain period, the operator will experience great
difficulty in effecting that which might have been done with the
greatest ease at a more favourable moment. The bark of the stock
should part very readily on introducing the budding-knife; the
young wood from which the buds are taken should also be in pro-
per condition, not too young, as it would not have sufficient consis-
tency, but just when assuming the appearance of ripening. A. J, D.]
10
218 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
of the stock is very imperfect, because the bark
of the former necessarily lies upon the wood of
the latter, except just at the sides; and, from the
impossibility of bringing the two barks in contact,
neither the ascending nor descending cur-
rents of sap are able freely to intermin-
ja gle. This plan, much improved by cut-
= ting out the stock into the form of a wedge,
instead of splitting it, may, however, be
advantageously employed for such plants
as Cactaceze (fig. 26), the parts of which,
owing to their succulence, readily form a
union with each other.
A far better method than whip-graft- 27
ing, but more tedions, is saddle-graft-
ing (fig. 27); in which the stock is
pared obliquely on both sides till it be-
comes an inverted wedge, and the scion
is slit up the centre, when its sides are
pared down till they fit the sides of
the stock. In this method, the great-
est possible quantity of surface is
brought into contact, and the parts are
mutually so adjusted, that the ascend-
ing sap is freely received from the
stock by the scion, while, at the same
time, the descending sap can flow
freely from the scion into the stock.
Mr. Knight, in describing this mode of operating, has
the following observations :
“The graft first begins its efforts to unite itself to
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 219
the stock just at the period when the formation of a
new internal layer of bark commences in the spring ;
and the fluid which generates this layer of bark, and
which also feeds the inserted graft, radiates in every
direction from the vicinity of the medulla to the
external surface of the alburnum. The graft is, of
course, most advantageously placed when it presents
the largest surface to receive such fluid, and when
the fluid itself is made to deviate least from its natu-
ral course. This takes place most efficiently when
(as in this saddle-grafting) a graft of nearly equal size
with. the stock is divided at its base and made to
stand astride the stock, and when the two divisions
of the graft are pared
extremely thin, at and
near their lower extre-
mities, so that they
may be brought into
close contact with the
stock (from which but
little bark or wood
should be pared off)
by the ligature.” (Hort.
Trans. v. 147.) To ex-
ecute saddle-grafting
properly, thescion and ¥
stock should, be of
equal size: and, where |}
that cannot be, a se-
cond method, in which |
the scion may be much ‘a
rll
220 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
smaller than the stock, bas been described by the
same great gardener. This (jig. 28) is practised
upon small stocks almost exclusively in Here-
fordshire; but it is never attempted till the usual
season of grafting is past, and till the bark is rea-
dily detached from the alburnum. The head of
the stock is then taken off, by a single stroke of
the knife, obliquely, so that the incision commences
about the width of the diameter of the stock below
the point where the medulla appears in the section,
and ends as much above it, upon the opposite side.
The scion, or graft, which should not exceed in dia-
meter half that of the stock, is then to be divided
longitudinally, about two inches upwards from its
lower end, into two unequal divisions, by passing the
knife upwards, just in contact with one side of the
medulla. The stronger division of the graft is then
to be pared thin at its lower extremity, and intro-
duced, as in crown-grafting, between the bark and
wood of the stock; and the more slender division is
fitted to the stock upon the opposite side. The graft,
consequently, stands astride the stock, to which it
attaches itself firmly upon each side, and which
it covers completely in a single season. Grafts of
the Apple and Pear rarely ever fail in this method
of grafting, which may be practised with equal success
with young wood in July, as soon as it has become
moderately firm and mature.*
* A very neat and satisfactory mode of propagating fruit trees
when large stocks are not at hand, is to take small pieces of the
roots of the proper kinds of stocks and graft the scions on these
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 221
In all these methods, and in every other that could
be named, it is indispensable that similar parts should
be brought as much as possible into contact; for the
more completely this is accomplished, the more cer-
tain is the operation to succeed. It is undoubtedly
true, that, as the cellular system of a tree is diffused
through its whole diameter (43, 46), it is impossible
to apply a scion to a stock without their cellular sys-
tems coming in contact; and, therefore, it might ap-
pear indifferent whether bark is applied to bark and
alburnum to alburnum, or whether the bark is adapt-
ed to the wood and the latter to the liber. But it is
always to be remembered that each of these parts has
special modifications of its own, which modifications
require contact with parts similarly modified, in or-
der to unite readily and firmly; and also, that, al-
roots, by common whip grafting. Then plant them at once, cover-
ing the point of union about two inches under the surface of the
soil. Small seedling apple stocks, one year old, even if only the
thickness of the graft, answer perfectly well in this manner.
The apple tree is propagated in American nurseries, by millions
every year, by grafting the roots, or rather the stocks headed down
to an inch or so above the crown of the root, splitting them, and
inserting the scion sloped to a wedge shape in the common mode of
cleft grafting. The two year seedling stocks used for this purpose,
are usually lifted in the autumn, and buried in a cellar for this pur-
pose. The grafts are inserted in winter by the fire-side; when
grafted, the scion is held firm by a bit of matting bound round the
stock, the latter is then packed away in the cellar till spring. Then
the grafts are planted out in rows in the nursery, and by autumn
they have grown from three to six feet high. As the earth covers
the graft-wound no grafting clay or wax is needed, and the whole,
except planting, is done in winter, when labor is least valuable.
AJ. D.
222 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
though the cellular horizontal system, through which
union by the first intention takes place, may be alive
on all parts of the section of a branch, yet that it isin
the bark, and in the space between the bark and
wood, that its developement is most rapid, and its
tendency to growth most easily excited and main-
tained.
It is not, however, to be supposed that these opera-
tions can be performed indifferently, between any two
species, although such was formerly so general a
belief that it was asserted that roses became black
when grafted on Black Currants, and oranges crim-
son if worked on the Pomegranate.* In point of
fact, the operations are successful in those cases only
where the stock and scion are very nearly allied ; and
the degree of success is in proportion to the degree of
affinity. Thus, varieties of the same species unite the
most freely, then species of the same genus, then
genera of the same natural order; beyond which the
power does not extend, unless, in the case of parasites
like the Mistletoe, which grow indifferently upon
totally different plants. For instance, Pears work
freely upon Pears, very well on Quinces, less willing-
ly on Apples or Thorns, and not at all upon Plums
or Cherries; while the Lilac will take on the Ash,
and the Olive on the Phillyrea, because they are
plants of the same natural order. M. De Candolle
* Et steriles platani malos gessére, valentes
Castanez fagos, ornusque incanuit albo
Flore pyri, glandemque sues fregére sub ulmis,
Georg. lib. ii.
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 223
even says that he has succeeded, notwithstanding the
great difference in their vegetation, to work the Lilac
on the Phillyrea, the Olive on the Ash, and the
Bignonia radicans on the Catalpa; but plants so ob-
tained are very short-lived. For some curious parti-
culars upon this subject, see Physiologie Végétale, p.
788, &e.
There are two cases apparently at variance with
this law; both of which require explanation.
1. Columella asserts that, by a particular manner
of grafting, the Olive may be made to take upon the
Fig tree, and his words have been repeated by many
writers; but Thouin proved, experimentally, that no
such union will take place, and that where success
appears to attend Columella’s operation, it is owing
to the scion rooting into the soil, independently of
the Fig stock (see Mémoire sur la prétendue Greffe
Columelle), and becoming a layer.
2. Mention is made by Pliny of a tree in the gar-
den of Lucullus, which was so grafted as to bear pears,
apples, figs, plums, olives, almonds, grapes, &c.; and
at this day the gardeners of Italy, especially of Genoa
and Florence, sell plants of Jasmines, Roses, Honey-
suckles, &., all growing together from a stock of
Orange, or Myrtle, or Pomegranate, on which they
say they are grafted. But this is a mere cheat, the
fact being that the stock has its centre bored out, so
as to be made into a hollow cylinder, through which
the stems of Jasmines and other flexible plants are
easily made to pass, their roots intermingling with
those of the stock; after growing for a time, the hori-
224 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
zontal distension of the stems forces them together,
and they assume all the appearances of being united.
Such plants are, of course, very short-lived.
From what has been now stated, it may be easily
conceived that the choice of the stock on which a
given plant is to be worked is by no means a matter
of indifference, but that the operation may be serious-
ly affected by the skill with which the most suitable
stock is selected. If, indeed, we had no other object
in view in grafting than to unite one plant to ano-
ther, that object would doubtless be best attained by
using the same species, and even a similar variety of
the same species, for both stock and scion; the ends
of grafting and budding are, however, much beyond
this, and it often happens that the species to which a
scion belongs, or the nearest variety, is the worst on
which it can be worked. It is, indeed, sometimes
asserted that the stock exercises little influence over
the scion, but this is so great an error that it cannot
be too distinctly contradicted. This subject has al-
ready been adverted to, but it now requires more
special consideration.
One of the first objects of budding and grafting, is
to multiply a given species or variety more readily
than is possible by any other method. If this is the
only purpose of the cultivator, that stock will obvi-
ously be the best which can be most readily procur-
ed; and hence we see, in the ordinary practice of the
nurseries, the common Plum taken as a stock for
Peaches and Apricots, the Wild Pear and Crab for
Pears and Apples, and so on. When there is a diffi-
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 225
culty in procuring a suitable stock, pieces of the roots
of the plant to be multiplied are often taken as a sub-
stitute, and they answer the purpose perfectly well;
for the circumstance which hinders the growth of
pieces of a root into young branches ‘s merely their
want of buds: if ascion is grafted upon a root, that
deficiency is supplied, and the difference between the
internal organisation of a root and a branch is so
trifling as to oppose no obstacle to the solid union of
the two.
Mr. Knight was the first to show the possibility of
grafting scions upon roots. An account of his me-
thod of doing this was given at a very early period
of the existence of the Horticultural Society (June,
1811), and he at the same time suggested the possibi-
lity of the practice being applied to grafting scarce
herbaceous plants upon the roots of their commoner
congeners; an operation now commonly practised
with the Dahlia, Peony, and other plants of a similar
kind; and lately a method of multiplying Combre-
tum purpureum by similar means has been pointed
out in the Proceedings of the Horticultural Society, i.
40.
Mere propagation is, however, by no means the
only object of the grafter; another and still more im-
portant one is, to secure a permanent union between
the scion and stock, so that the new plant may grow
as freely and as long as if it were on its own bottom
under the most favourable circumstances. If this is
not attended to, the hopes of the cultivator will be
frustrated by the early death of his plant.
10*
226 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
Whenever the stock and graft or bud are not per-
fectly well suited to each other, an enlargement is
well known always to take place at the point of their
junction, and generally to some extent either above
or below it. Thisis particularly observable in Peach
trees which have been budded, at any considerable
height from the ground, upon Plum stocks; and it
appears to arise from the obstruction which the de-
scending sap of the Peach tree meets with in the bark
of the Plum stock; for the effects produced, both
upon the growth and produce of the tree, are simi-
lar to those which occur when the descent of the
sap is impeded by a ligature, or by the destruc-
tion of a circle of bark. In course of time this
difference between the scion and stock puts an
end to the possibility of the ascending and de-
scending fluids passing into each other, and the
death of the scion is the result. In all the cases I
have seen, this has arisen from the power of hori-
zontal growth in the stock and scion being different;
and I doubt whether it ever proceeds from any other
cause. For example: the Hawthorn and the Pear
are so nearly allied that the latter may be easily work-
ed upon the former; the Hawthorn is, however, a
slow-growing bush or small tree; the Pear is a large
forest tree of rapid growth; and the Pear will grow
an inch in diameter while the Hawthorn is growing
half an inch.
This last circumstance, if the difference in the rate
of growth or in other respects is not excessive, may
be taken advantage of for particular purposes. When
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 227
trees grow too large for asmall garden, it is desirable
to dwarf them; and when they are naturally unfruit-
ful, to render them productive; both which effects
result, at the same time, from grafting them upon
stocks that grow slower than themselves. Thus the
Apple is dwarfed by grafting on the Paradise stock,
and the Pear by the Quince. The physiological ex-
planation of trees dwarfed by being compelled to
grow upon a stock which compels their descending
sap to accumulate in the branches has been already
given (85). Instead of repeating it here, I take the
following paragraph from the paper by Mr. Knight,
“ On the Effects of Different Kinds of Stocks in Graft-
ing,” published in the Horticultural Transactions, ii.
199.
“The disposition in young trees to produce and
nourish blossom buds and fruit is increased by this
apparent obstruction of the descending sap; and the
fruit of such young trees ripens, I think, somewhat
earlier than upon other young trees of the same age,
which grow upon stocks of their own species; but
the growth and vigour of the tree, and its power to
nourish a succession of heavy crops, are diminished,
apparently, by the stagnation, in the branches and
stock, of a portion of that sap which, in a tree grow-
ing upon its own stem, or upon a stock of its own
species, would descend to nourish and promote the
extension of the roots. The practice, therefore, of
grafting the Pear tree on the Quince stock, and the
Peach and Apricot on the Plum, where extensive
growth and durability are wanted, is wrong; but it is
228 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
cligible wherever it is wished to diminish the vigour
and growth of the tree, and where its durability is
not thought important.
“When,” adds this great gardener, ‘much diffi-
culty is found in making a tree, whether fructiferous
or ornamental, of any species or variety, produce
blossoms, or in making its blossoms set when pro-
duced, success will probably be obtained in almost all
cases by budding or grafting on a stock which is
nearly enough allied to the graft to preserve it alive
for a few years, butnot permanently. The Pear tree
affords a stock of this kind to the Apple; and I have
obtained a heavy crop of Apples from a graft which
had been inserted in a tall Pear stock only twenty
months previously, in a season when every blossom
of the same variety of fruit in the orchard was destroy-
ed by frost. The fruit thus obtained was externally
perfect, and possessed all its ordinary qualities; but
the cores were black and without a single seed; and
every blossom had certainly fallen abortively, if it
had been growing upon its native stock. The expe-
rienced gardener will readily anticipate the fate of the
graft; it perished in the following winter. The stock,
in such cases as the preceding, promotes, in propor-
tion to its length, the early bearing and early death
of the graft.”
It is sometimes desirable to increase the hardiness
of a variety, and grafting or budding appears to pro-
duce this effect to a certain extent, not, indeed, by
the stock communicating to the scion any of its own
power of resisting cold, but by the stock being better
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 229
suited to the soil of latitudes colder than that from
which the scion comes, and consequently requiring a
lower bottom-heat to arouse its excitability. Mr.
Knight, indeed, denies the fact, because “the root
which nature gives to each seedling plant must be
well, if not best, calculated to support it;” and it is so,
under the circumstances in which the species was first
created; but, without this addition, the paragraph
quoted in inverted commas is specious only, not just.
Probably, in Persia, the native country of the Peach,
that species, or its wild type the Almond, is the best
stock for the former fruit; because the temperature
of the earth (see 117, 118, 119, and Book II. Ch. L.)
is that in which it was created to grow. But ina
climate like that of England, the temperature of
whose soil is so much lower than that of Persia, the
Plum, on which the Peach takes freely, is a hardy
native, and suited to such soil, and its roots are
aroused from their winter sleep by an amount of
warmth unsuited to the Peach. And experience, in
this case, completely confirms what theory teaches;
for, although there may be a few healthy trees
in this country growing upon Almond stocks, it is
perfectly certain that the greater part of those which
have been planted have failed; while, in the warm
soil of France and Italy, it is the stock upon which
the old trees have, in almost all cases, been budded.
Tn determining upon what kind of stock a given
fruit tree should be grafted, it is important to be
aware that certain species prefer particular soils and
dislike others, for reasons which are not susceptible
230 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
of explanation. In the case of the common stocks
employed for the propagation of the Apple, Pear,
Peach, and Cherry, it was found by Mr. Dubreuil,
an intelligent gardener at Rouen, that in the chalky
gardens about that city neither the Plum nor the
wild Cherry would succeed for stone fruit, nor the
Doucin or Quince stock for Pears and Apples; but
that the Crab suited the Apple, the wild Pear the
cultivated Pear, the Almond the Peach, and the Ma-
haleb the Cherry. I formerly witnessed the result of
those experiments while in progress, and I well
remember the sickly state of his peaches and Cherries
grafted on Plum and Cherry stocks in the calcareous
borders of the rampart gardens of Rouen, and the
healthiness of the same fruit trees in the same garden,
when worked upon the Almond and the Mahaleb,
while the latter were unhealthy in their turn in the
borders composed artificially of loam. The result
of this experiment has been mentioned in the Hort.
Trans.., iv. 566, and is as follows :—
Loamy Soil. Chalky. Light.*
Apple Doucin Crab Doucin.
Pear Quince Wild Pear Quince.
Plun Plum Almond Almond.
Cherry Wild Cherry Mahaleb Wild Cherry.+
As this work treats exclusively of those operations
in gardening which can be explained upon known
* That is, with an admixture of sand and decayed vegetable
matter.
+ By Wild Cherry here is meant Mazzard, and not our Wild Cherry.
A. J.D,
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 231
principles of vegetable physiology, all further refer-
ence to the question of stocks ought, in strictness, to
be dismissed at this stage. It may be as well, however,
to add that there are some well-attested facts relating
to the preference of particular varieties for one kind
of stock rather than another, which we cannot explain,
but which are so important in practice as to deserve
to be studied carefully. There appears to be no
doubt that, as is asserted by Mr. Knight and others
(Hort. Trans., ii. 215; Gard. Mag., vii. 195), the Apri-
cot succeeds better on its own species than on the
Plum. The nurserymen know very well that what
they call French Peaches, such as the Bourdine, Belle
Chevreuse, and double Montague, will only take on
the. Pear Plum, while other varieties prefer the
Muscle Plum; and a variety called the Brompton
suits them all equally well, making handsome trees,
which are, however, uniformly short-lived.* The
Lemon is also found to be a better stock for the
Orange than its own varieties.
It is not merely upon the productiveness or vigour
of the scion that the stock exercises an influence; its
effects have been found to extend to the quality of
the fruit. This may be conceived to happen in two
ways—either by the ascending sap carrying up with
it into the scion a part of the secretions of the stock,
or by the difference induced in the general health of
a scion by the manner in which the flow of ascending
and descending sap is promoted or retarded by the
* See G. Lindley’s Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden, p.
299.
232 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
stock. In the Pear, the fruit becomes lighter coloured
and smaller on the Quince stock, than on the wild
Pear, still more so on the Medlar; and in these two
instances the ascent and descent of sap is obstructed
by the Quince more than by the wild Pear, and by
the Medlar more than by the Quince. Similar effects
are produced in the Apple by the Paradise and Sibe-
rian Bittersweet stocks. Mr. Knight mentions such
differences in the quality of his Peaches. His garden
contained two trees of the Acton Scott variety, ‘one
growing upon its native stock, the other upon a Plum
stock, the soil being similar and the aspect the same.
That growing upon the Plum stock, afforded fruit of a
larger size, and its colour, where it was exposed to the
sun, was much more red; but its pulp was more
coarse, and its taste and flavour so inferior that he
would have denied the identity of the variety, had he
not with his own hand inserted the buds from which
both sprang.” (Hort. Trans., v. 289.)
In addi:ion to a judicious adaptation of the bud or
scion to the stock, there are other circumstances to
which it is necessary to attend, in order to insure the
success of the operation. It has already been seen
(p. 180), that the youngest buds of the Potato are more
excitable than those more completely matured; and
the same appears to be true of the bud im other fruits.
‘The mature bud,” says Mr. Knight, “ takes imme-
diately with more certainty, under the same external
circumstances: it is much less liable to perish during
winter; and it possesses the valuable property of
rarely or never vegeteting prematurely in the sum-
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. . 233
mer, though it be inserted before the usual period,
and in the season when the sap of the stock is most
abundant. I have, in different years, removed some
hundred buds of the Peach tree from the forcing-
house to luxuriant shoots upon the open wall; and I
have never seen an instance in which any of such
buds have broken and vegetated during the summer
and autumn; but when I have had occasion to
reverse this process and to insert immature buds from
the open wall into the branches of trees growing in a
Peach-house, many of these, and in some seasons all,
have broken soon after being inserted, though at the
period of their insertion the trees in the Peach-house
had nearly ceased to grow.” (Hort. Trans., iii. 136.)
This property was turned to practical account by
Mr. Knight in budding the Walnut. Owing to the
excitability of its buds, this tree is difficult to work,
because its buds exhaust all their organisable and ali-
mentary matter before any adhesion can be formed
between themselves and the stock; but by taking the
small, fully matured, and little developed buds, found
at the base of the annual shoots of this plant, time is
given for an adhesion between them and the albur-
num before they push forth, and then they take freely
enough. (See Mort. Trans., iii. 135.)
Buds should either be inserted when the vegeta-
tion of a plant is languid, or growth above the place
of insertion should be arrested by pinching the ter-
minal bud; otherwise the sap, which should be
directed into the bud, in order to assist in its adhe-
sion, is conveyed to other places, and the bud
234 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
perishes from starvation. For similar reasons, when
a bud begins to grow, having firmly fixed itself upon
the stock, the latter should be headed back nearly as
far as the bud, so as to compel all the ascending cur-
rent of sap to flow towards it; otherwise the buds of
the stock itself will obtain that food which the
stranger bud should be supplied with.
In grafting also it is always found that a union be-
tween the scion and the stock takes place most readily
when the latter is headed down ; but thisis not the only
point to attend to. The scion should always be so pre-
pared that a bud is near the point of union between
itself and the stock, because such a bud, as soon as it
begins to grow, proceeds to furnish wood which assists
in binding the two together. The scion should be more
Lackward in its vegetation than the stock, because
it will then be less excitable; otherwise its buds may
begin to grow before a fitting communication is esta-
blished between the stock and scion, and the latter
will be exhausted by its own vigour: if, on the con-
trary, the stock is in the state of incipient growth, and
the scion torpid, granulations of cellular tissue will
have time to form and unite the wound, and the scion
will become distended with sap forced into it from
the stock, and thus be able to keep its buds alive
when they begin to shoot into branches. In order to
assist in this part of the operation, a “ heel” is some-
times in difficult cases left on a scion, and inserted
into a vessel of water, until the union has taken
place; or, for the same purpose, the scion is bound
round with loose string or linen with one end steeped
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 235
in water, so as to secure a supply of water to the
scion by the capillary attraction of such a bandage.
IndvsJ, the ordinary practice of surrounding the
scion snd stock at the point of contact with a mass of
grafting clay is intended for the same purpose; that
is to say, to prevent evaporation from the surface of
the scioa, and to afford a small supply of moisture ;
and henw, among other things, the superiority of
clay over tue plasters, mastics, and cements, occasion-
ally employed, which simply arrest perspiration, and
can never assiss in communicating aqueous food to
the scion.
Here also muss be noticed certain practices, which
experience shows to be important, of which theory of-
fers no obvious explanation. Mr. Knight, for exam-
ple, asserts that cutungs taken from the trunks of
seedling old trees grow much more vigorously than
those taken from the extremities of bearing branches;
and it is an undoubted fact that the Beech, and other
trees of a similar kind, cannot be grafted with any
success, unless the scions are made of two-years’-old
wood; one-year-old wood generally fails.
What is called herbaceous grafting, or Tschudy
grafting, depends so entirely upon the same princi-
ples as common grafting, that a separate notice of it
is hardly necessary. Nevertheless, as itis sometimes
very useful, a few words may be given to it. When
two vigorous branches cross each other, and press
together, so as not to move, they will often form an
organic union ; if two apples press together, or if two
cucumbers are forced to grow side by side in a space
236 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
so small] as to compel them to touch each other firmly,
they also will grow together; and herbaceous graft-
ing is merely an application to practice of this power
of soft and cellular parts to unite. In order to secure
success, the scion and stock, being pared so as to fit
together accurately, are firmly bound to each other,
without being crushed; parts in full vegetation, and
abounding in sap, are always chosen for the opera-
tion, such as the upper parts of annual shoots, near
the terminal bud; perspiration is diminished by the
removal of some of the leaves of both stock and scion,
and by shading (71); and by degrees, as the union
becomes secured, buds and leaves are removed from
the stock, in order that all the sap possible may be
impelled into the scion. This method, if well managed,
succeeds completely in about thirty days, and is use-
ful as a method of multiplying lactescent, resinous,
and hard-wooded trees, which refuse to obey more
common methods. Baron de Tschudy succeeded in
this way in working the Melon on the Bryony (both
Cucurbitaceous plants), the Artichoke on the Car-
doon (both Cynaras), Tomatoes on Potatoes (both
Solanums), and so on. The following account of
managing Conifer, where herbaceous grafting is
used, is taken from the Gardener's Magazine, vol. il.
p. 64, and sufficiently explains the practice :—
“The proper time for grafting pines is when the
young shoots have made about three quarters of their
length, and are still so herbaceous as to break like a
shoot of asparagus. The shoot of the stock is then
broken off about two inches under its terminating
OF PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. 237
bud; the leaves are stripped off from twenty to
twenty-four lines down the extremity, leaving, how-
ever, two pairs of leaves opposite, and close to the
section of fracture, which leaves are of great import-
ance. The shoot is then split with a very thin knife
between the two pairs of leaves (jig. 29, a,) and to
the depth of two inches. The scion is then prepared
(0): the lower part, being stripped of its leaves to the
length of two inches, is 29
cut, and inserted in the
usual manner of cleft-
grafting. They may also
be grafted in the lateral
manner (c.) The graft is
tied with a slip of woollen,
and a cap of paper is put
over the whole, to protect
it from the sun and rain.
At the end of fifteen days
this cap is removed, and
the ligature at the end of
a month; at that time also
the two pairs of leaves (a), which have served as
nurses, are removed. The scions of those sorts of
pines which make two growths in a season, or, as
the technical phrase is, have a second sap, produce a
shoot of five or six inches in the first year ; but those
of only one sap, as the Corsican Pine, Weymouth Pine,
&c., merely ripen the wood grown before grafting, and
form a strong terminating bud, which in the following
year produces a shoot of fifteen inches, or two feet.”
238 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
With regard to INARCHING, which was probably
the most ancient kind of grafting, because it is that
which must take place accidentally in thickets and
forests, it differs from grafting in this, that the scion
is not severed from its parent, but remains attached
to it until it has united to the stock to which it is tied
and fitted in various ways; the scion and stock are
therefore mutually independent of each other, and
the former lives uponits own resources, until the union
is completed.
In practice, a portion of the branch of a scion
is pared away, well down into the alburnum; a cor-
responding wound is made in the branch of a stock ;
tongues are made in each wound so that they will fit
into each other; and the liber and al-
burnum of the two being very accu-
rately adjusted, the whole are firmly
bound up; grafting clay is applied to
the wound, and the plants operated
upon are carefully shaded; in course
of time the wounds unite, and then
the scion is severed from its parent.
Gardeners consider this the most cer-
tain of all modes of grafting, but it is
troublesome, and only practised in dif-
ficult cases. The circumstances most
conducive to its success are, to stop the
branch of both stock and scion under
operation, so as to obtain an accumula-
tion of sap, and to arrest the flow of sap
upwards; to moderate the motion of
OF PRUNING. 239
the fluids by shading; to head back the stock as far
as the origin of the scion, as soon as the union is
found to be complete; and at the same time to re-
trench from the scion a part of its buds and leaves, so
that there may not be a too rapid demand upon the
stock, while the line of union is still imperfectly con-
solidated.
A method of propagating Camellias, (jig. 30,) by
putting the end or heel of a scion into a vessel of
water, mentioned in the Gardener's Magazine, ii. 33,
is essentially the same as inarching. The water
communicated to the scion through the wounded end
supplies it with that food which, under natural cir-
cumstances, would be derived from the roots of the
plant to which it belongs.*
CHAPTER XIII.
OF PRUNING.
“Ta taille est une des opérations les plus import-
antes et les plus délicates du jardinage. Confiée
* One of our most experienced gardeners propagates the camellia
with great facility, by whip grafting small seedling stocks and
plunging the pots in the bone-black of the sugar refineries, covering
the graft entirely with this fine loose material. This not only pre-
serves an uniform state of moisture about the graft, but it seems to
exert some specific action upon the growth of new wood, doubtless
from the action of the phosphate of lime in the bone-black. The
luxuriance of the young grafts raised in this way is very remark-
able. A. J.D.
240 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
communément a des ouvriers peu instruits, observée
dans les résultats d’une pratique trop souvent irré-
fiéchie, elle a di nécessairement trouver des détrac-
teurs méme parmi les physiologistes. Tl en efit sans
doute été autrement, si on l’avait étudiée dans les jardins
du petit nombre de praticiens qui ont su de nos jours
la bien comprendre. Sagement basée sur les lois de
la végétation, elle contribue, entre leurs mains, non
seulement 4 régulariser la production des fruits, 4 en
obtenir de plus beaux, mais encore 4 prolonger l’ex-
istence et la fécondité des arbres.”
Nothing can be more just than these words,
addressed to the Horticultural Society of Paris, by
their President, M. Héricart de Thury; and, if they
do not apply with as much force to our gardeners as
to those of France, they do most fully to our forest-
ers.
The quantity of timber that a tree forms, the
amount and quality of its secretions, the brilliancy of
its colours, the size of its flowers, and, in short, its
whole beauty, depend upon the action of its branches
and leaves, and their healthiness (64). The object of
the pruner is to diminish the number of leaves and
branches; whence it may be at once understood how
delicate are the operations he has to practise, and how
thorough a knowledge he ought to possess of all the
laws which regulate the action of the organs of vege-
tation. If well directed, pruning is one of the most
useful, and, if ill-directed, it is among the most mis-
chievous, operations that can take place upon a
plant.
OF PRUNING. 241
‘When a portion of a healthy plant is cut off, all
that sap which would have been expended in sup-
porting the part removed is directed into the parts
which remain, and more especially into those in the
immediate vicinity of it, Thus, if the leading bud of
a growing branch is stopped, the lateral buds, which
would otherwise have been dormant, are made tosprout
forth; and, if a growing branch is shortened, then
the very lowest buds, which seldom push, are brought
into action: hence the necessity, in pruning, of cut-
ting a useless branch clean out; otherwise the remo-
val of one branch is only the cause of the production
of a great many others. This effect of stopping does
not always take place immediately; sometimes its
first effect is to cause an accumulation of sap in a
branch, which directs itself to the remaining buds,
and organises them against a future year. In ordi-
nary cases, it is thus that spurs or short bearing-
branches are obtained in great abundance. The
growers of the Filbert, in Kent, procure in this way
greater quantities of bearing wood than nature unas-
sisted would produce; for, as the filbert is always
borne by the wood of a previous year, it is desirable
that every bush should have as much of that wood as
can be obtained, for which everything else may be
sacrificed; and such wood is readily secured by
observing a continual system of shortening a young
branch hy two thirds, the effect of which is to call
all its lower buds into growth the succeeding year;
and thus each shoot of bearing wood is compelled to
produce many others. The Peach, by a somewhat
11
242 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES.
similar system, has been made to bear fruit in unfa-
vourable climates (Hort. Trans., ii. 366); and every
gardener knows how universally it is applied to the
Pear, Apple, Plum, and similar trees.* LEveni the
Fig-tree has thus been rendered much more fruitful
than by any other method. ‘ Whenever,” says Mr.
Knight, “a branch of this tree appears to be extending
with too much luxuriance, its point, at the tenth or
twelfth leaf, is pressed between the finger and
thumb, without letting the nails come in contact with
the bark, till the soft succulent substance is felt to
yield to the pressure. Such branch, in consequence,
ceases subsequently to elongate; and the sap is
repulsed, to be expended where it is more wanted.
A. fruit ripens at the base of each leaf, and during the
period in which the fruit is ripening, one or more of
the lateral buds shoots, and is subsequently sub-
jected to the same treatment, with the same result.
When I have suffered such shoots to extend freely to
their natural length, I have found that a small part
of them only became productive, either in the same
[* Nothing is more general, of late years, than complaints of the
short period of productiveness in the Peach tree, throughout the
Middle States, Although this is often owing tothe worm, which
girdles the tree at the root, yet the almost total neglect of pruning
is a frequent cause of sterility and decay. When left to itself the
interior of the head of the tree becomes filled with small dead
branches, and the trunk and larger limbs bark-bound and moss-
covered: the whole tree is enfeebled; leaves are only produced at
the extremity of the long branches, and the fruit borne, if any, is
comparatively worthless. By pursuing the practice reeommended
in the text, the trees may be preserved for a long time in a high
state of vigour and productiveness,