The February Horticulturist honors me with a question which I must have the politeness to answer, although I have nothing original or interesting, as yet, to say on the subject of grape-grafting. You ask, whether it is desirable to have that operation illustrated by cuts. My answer is, yes, by all means; and so, I think, would nineteen out of twenty of your readers say, if they had only the chance to cast their ballots. Let us have the pictures; I am still very fond of them, although all my hair is not precisely of the same color it once was. They aid the apprehension, and are the next best thing to seeing the operation itself. Verbal descriptions of any process', however minute they may be, often convey different ideas to different minds. This a good drawing can not do. You have still time to set us all to work, in the spring, in the right way.

I have the pleasure of Dr. Grant's acquaintance, and for that reason his article in your last number was read with more than ordinary satisfaction. His views of the principles of grape-grafting had all been suggested to my mind before. They are undoubtedly true, and proceed from a correct understanding of vegetable physiology. But the clearest knowledge of the principles of a science may be attended with defective practice; and, of all who would be grafters, only a favored few will be masters of the theory. What the great mass of horticulturists need is the knowledge of a simple, practical method of grafting, always attended with such an amount of success as will encourage them to risk an operation on a good vine in order to get a better. That is what all intelligent farmers are constantly doing with their apples and pears; and nothing more than what they would as surely do with their grapes, if they knew how. And to teach them to do it is the quickest and surest way to educate their palates, and convert them into eager purchasers of better kinds, on their own roots, from those who have them to dispose of.

Dr. Grant mixes encouragement with discouragement very accurately - " 'alf and 'alf." He tells us how to do a good thing, and then tells us not to do it. I feel like drawing my rusty scalpel upon him for filling me with zeal and hope "in the first place, and then, while the ground is covered with snow, giving me a shower-bath of every cold water. My system feels, as yet, but a feeble reaction, and I fear the glow of vigorous health will not fully return after such thorough hydropathic treatment. I had hoped the doctor was a regular practitioner, like myself and loved to administer cordials and placebos. The sum of his objections to grafting is, that a grafted vine is not as durable, as one on its own roots. Admitted: and will not the same objection apply to an old apple or pear-tree that has been grafted? His argument for a vine on its own roots is, that it takes but three years to bring it into a good bearing state. As to time, the argument is all in favor of an old vine successfully grafted, which by the operation is retarded but one year.

A gain of two years is a great gain to all men, who know that "man that is born of woman " is at least " of few days," if happily not " full of trouble." And how much greater still is the gain to him "whose table is surrounded with little grape-hungry mouths, whose impatience seems to augment the interval between beef-soup and Delaware Grapes into an eternity.

Let us suppose another very common case: A suburban resident has a row of Isabellas in his very small garden. He knows that to take them up, and trench, and enrich the border for a new kind and generation of grapes is an expensive operation. But that is not the worst of it, by a great deal. He knows that even should the tender roots of young vines take well in ground before occupied by grapes, he must wait three years before he can fill his fruit-basket with un-bought grapes, unless by paying a " fancy " price he buys large layers, and then he may reduce his term of expectancy (or " hope deferred ") to two years.

Again: A man has a vineyard of one acre, which supplies himself and family abundantly with wine and fruit, and yields a handsome profit besides. To trench and .set it in vines it originally cost him $300 in money, and three years of impatient expectation, not unattended with less than $ - in toil of hand and sweat of brow. He is 50 years old, but not without ambition. His Isabellas mildew, are uncertain, and of slow sale in the market. He wants his acre in better vines. The idea of extirpating, retrenching, replanting, and beginning de novo, is out of the question. What then? Why, he will graft the vines as fast as his limited means will enable him to obtain the eyes. And that is what those who understand it are now doing at Cincinnati. True, the vines may not last more than fifty, or forty, or twenty, or even ten years; but that's enough.

And thus, I might present many other supposed cases, to show the very great importance of the art of grafting the grape.

A very extensive dealer in grape-vines, of Rochester, N. Y., (vide Gardener's Monthly,) propagates the vine very largely by grafting a single eye upon a root not more than two inches long. The plants are ready for market the succeeding fall; and, I presume, are twice as large and vigorous as they would have been unassisted by the root. The idea is plausible in theory, and will doubtless be eminently successful in practice. I am inclined to think that all feeble growers should be grown in that way. The Rebecca, for example, (one of the best of grapes,) is comparatively worthless on its own roots, from sheer attenuation and debility. I have seen but one vine whose annual crop would detain a five-year-old boy from his play more than five minutes. When grafted I have seen them grow with sufficient vigor. One more suggestion in this connection, and I have done, viz: to use "Longworth's Great Grower" as an invariable stock upon which to propagate all feeble growers. I saw this vine in Mr. Longworth's garden, and was amazed at the luxuriance of its growth.

I would describe the 'monster, if I thought your confidence in me could stand such a test; but as I do not wish you to take me for a veritable descendant of Baron Munchausen, 1 will hold my pen, and merely add that Mr. Longworth has himself described the vine, in a letter to the Cincinnati Horticultural Society, which may have been published in their proceedings.

[We extend you a hearty greeting, El Medico. You may at times wield a " rusty scalpel," but always a polished pen. Your "chapter of failures " has already awakened a wide-spread sympathy, in which we hope you and many of our readers have found some comfort. We gather from this that a large number of individuals are in want of just such knowledge as you called for, and that in this respect you are emphatically a "representative man." We have prepared the illustrations and placed them in the engraver's hands, and if finished in time you shall have them in the present number. The root grafting you allude to is now common among propagators, but is not what you want; we shall explain it, however. Mr. Longworth's "Great Grower " we presume is the one, the fruit of which he sent us some four or five years since. - Ed].