Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/118

 88 this practice is detailed in Du Hamel, Miller, and most gardening books. It is of primary importance that the liber, or young bark, of the bud, and that of the stock, should be accurately united by their edges. The air and wet must of course be excluded.

It is requisite for the success of this operation that the plants should be nearly akin. Thus the Chionanthus virginica, Fringe-tree, succeeds well on the Common Ash, Fraxinus excelsior by which means it is propagated in our gardens. Varieties of the same species succeed best of all; but apples and pears, two different species of the same genus, may be grafted on one stock. The story of a Black Rose being produced by grafting a common rose, it is not worth inquiring which, on a black currant stock, is, as far as I can learn, without any foundation, and is indeed at the first sight absurd. I have known the experiment tried to no purpose. The rose vulgarly reported to be so produced is merely a dark Double Velvet Rose, a variety, as we presume, of Rosa centifolia. Another report of the same kind has been raised concerning the Maltese Oranges, whose red juice has