Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-01-11
The Twie's Secret.

of it. Perhaps 1t Is asked of me for
the reason that being made OF wood
somehow or other am supposed to
know more than other people about
the habits of trees and the mysteries
of their growth 1t is certain that no
ordinary man knows much about the
subject The skillful nurseryman and
knows that by reason of
certain manipulatlons, certain results
follow but he cannot tell you how the
commonest tree manages to select its
nutriment and build up It's structure,
and much less can he tell you the pc
culiar process by which a graft--a
mere bit of bud stuck upon a shoot,
manages to ignore the roots and the
trunk and to produce during the life ct
the combination an entirely different
kind of fruit from that originally in
tended.
l have inquired diligently among
my tree friends, but none of them will
impart the secret. There is a strict
censorship on these processes and no
one has as yet been able to break
through it. If 1t wasn't something that
was happening all the time it would
be regarded as a miracle. Practically
all of the fruit that comes to the mark
ct is the result of grating and few
people seem to think that there is any
thing wonderful about 1t. Fruits grow
all there is to be said. AS long as they
come to our table, there is no use in
bcshering. But we would have vastly
less fruit and of a greatly inferior
quality if one had ever bothered or
given any thought to the subject. Just
as electricity has been made useful by
studying it's peculiarities and taking
advantage Of them, so have fruits been
developed by observing certain laws of
growth.
Here is young tree that starts out
in life with the determination of pro-
ducing little sour hard apple that
will only be palatable to hogs. 1t has
great amount of vigor, but it is a
vulgar tree not destined to shine in
good society, and having no ambition
in that direction. When it has reach
ed a certain stage, along comes the
nurseryman and cuts off its top. He
fastens bit of a twig, weighing per-
haps a fraction of an ounce, from a
tree of higher tone and behold in
course of time this little twig becomes
in effect the whole tree. 1t makes no
change in the roots or trunk, their
texture and arrangement remain the
same as if there had been no inter
ference with the original youthful in
tention of the shoot.
Its roots reach out into the soil and
extract just the same sort of nutriment
as it originally intended for the pro-
duction of gnarly, sour, r,unpalatable ap-
pies for the delectation of vagrant pigs
1t sends its supply of sap upward and
the grated twig takes charge of it and
uses it in the production of mdgnifi-
cent golden pippins or beautiful red
streaked baldwins. At the same time,
if a shoot is allowed to develop below
the grating point the low down char
acter of the original will be shown
by the production of apples shat will
tempt no human palate.
BY repeating the grating it is pC5si-
BILE to cause the orinigal stock to devel-
op into tree that will produce doz-
en- or more different varieties of fruit,
each of distinct flavor shape and color.
We only know that it can be done
and we know the method which must
be adopted to produce this result, but
no one can tell how The bit CT wood
which we call the graft and which we
place upon the original stock has scme
trick by which its original plans and
and produces the variety cf fruit it
had intended in the beginning to pro-
duce,' and instead of being hindered
by its change CT base rather is able to
some Improvements by
reason of the greater vigor of the rath-
er low born shoot to which it has been
attached. We are accustomed to think
that trees and plants have the capacity
CT selecting the peculiar materials nee
sssary for the production of their fruits |
from the ground in some mysterious
way, but here the roots are selecting
the material for one kind of apple |
from the ground, but a bit CT a twlg |
lakes hold at the top, and taking this |
brings forth something en-
.irely different
There is some sort of a life in the |
grated twig that is different from the
life in the other stock and the inhu-
ence of the latter cannot change the |
former. 1t has a certain capacity in !
tself in the manipulation of the ma
erials for the formation of apples. 1t |
las fixed methods and habits, and |
.hough the graft may grow from a |
wig to a great tree it changes not one |
Whit. 1t not only builds itself up on |
he original plan, but it's fruit also |
Scientists may talk learnedly about the |
of its cells, and of their
capacity for multiplication; of the |
labit of the original twig and its pew
= II ~. 4. ~.