[page] 260

It has been accepted as a law by horticulturists, that the graft produces no effect upon the stock into which it is inserted, other than, it may be, to communicate disease. A number of cases have been from time to time observed, which would go to show that there are exceptions to this rule. In May 1867, Meehan gave in the Gardeners' Monthly an account, with an illustration, of a pear which had been grafted upon a Mountain Ash –which by the way, is not an Ash but a kind of Pear. It is well-attested fact, that seven inches below the junction of the two, a pear shoot appeared upon the Mountain Ash stock. Mr. Darwin, in his recent work on the Variation of Animals and Plants, has brought together a number of facts of similar import. Another curious point upon which Mr. Darwin in his work furnishes strong evidence, is the production of graft hybrids. By this is meant the commingling of the peculiarities of the stock in the graft, manifested in flowers and fruit intermediate in character between the two after the manner of hybrids produced from seeds resulting from fertilization with foreign pollen. Adams' Laburnum, it is pretty well established,

[page] 261

originated in a shoot from a common Laburnum with yellow flowers, into which the Purple Laburnum had been grafted. The same tree produces flowers intermediate between the two sorts, and those also which have reverted to one or the other parent form. One cluster will bear both yellow and purple flowers, and a single flower has been seen divided into halves, one half being purple and the other yellow. Instances are recorded in which blue and red hyacinth bulbs have been cut in two, and the halves of the blue and red grew together and produced a united stein with flower of two colors on opposite sides, and not only this, but flowers in which the two colors were blended together. Red and blue potatoes have had their eyes grafted reciprocally into one another and some of the tubers resulting from the plants thus produced, showed indications of a cross. Mr. Darwin does not cite the case of our sweet and sour apple, but does that of a French variety still more striking. Mr. Barry long ago suggested that our much-talked-of sweet and sour apple was a graft hybrid. We thus briefly allude to this interesting subject, to direct attention to cases that bear upon the point. Isolated fact that in themselves seem to have but little importance, when collected and classified they are in this remarkable work of Mr. Darwin, to which we have referred, often tend to give us new views of the workings of nature.