Several years ago I read something about grafting the grape vine on pieces of the root of the wild Fox grape, and, fond as I am of experiments, I concluded to try it as soon as I should have an opportunity. In the spring following, having come into possession of two very vigorous plants of the Anna, I sent a man out into a neighboring swamp to dig some roots of the Fox grape. This took place on the fourth of April, while the ground was still frozen in many places not exposed to the rays of the sun. I chose only such parts of the root as were succulent, not woody, and not much thicker than a goose-quill, and cut them into pieces from five to six inches long, being careful to take only pieces that had some fibres. The method of grafting was the common cleft grafting; some of the aci one, however, I spliced on, tying every one of them with woolen yarn, and waxing the tops of the roots around the scions. Each scion had two buds. They were planted so deep that the uppermost bud was just visible above the ground. * To be perfectly accurate, I should have stated that a stump about an inch long was left above the uppermost bud of the scion.

I was not a little astonished to see every one of them grow. They were twenty-three in number. A gentleman of large experience in propagating the vine, when he saw my young plants, expressed his surprise at my success.

At the same time I grafted similar pieces of root with scions of but one eye each. Some of them took very readily, i.e., Diana, Hartford Prolific, and Concord, yet some of the very same kinds did not. This was owing to the impossibility to plant them deep enough; they dried up.

Although I had succeeded so well, yet my interest in cultivating the grape vine was then exclusively confined to experiments for their own sake, so that I neglected the plants, part of which were accidentally destroyed. Those left I took up in the second fell after planting. The union of the scions and roots was so perfect, that I was unable to discover the place where it had been effected. The roots were from ten to twelve feet long.

That I should feel very much encouraged by this experiment, was very natural; consequently I persuaded several friends of mine to adopt this mode of propagating. Last spring I grafted in the same way more than four hundred Annas, Delawares, Dianas, Herbemonts, and a great many other kinds, with so much confidence, that I made simultaneously arrangements for transplanting them as soon as necessary, promising to my friends lots of them. They took nicely, but after they had developed one or two leaves each, EVERY one of thru died !

I can hardly say whether I prefer my former success to this failure, which, being so general that there was not a single exception, induced me to investigate the matter and to find out the cause. In this, I think, I succeeded perfectly; I do not hesitate to let the readers of the Horticulturist into the secret, on the condition that each of them who is in a proper condition shall try my experiments, either to verify or explode them.

As stated in the above, I planted the grafted roots so deep that the uppermost eye projected just above the ground. Here I' will add that I planted them perpendicularly. Last spring, however, I planted them slantingly; in fact, I laid them in a furrow wide enough to receive them, inclining against a little ridge at an angle of 45 degrees. The scions had very little soil on them to protect them against sudden atmospheric changes; so every one of them was destroyed by the late frosts of the spring. Had I planted them as deep as I did the first time, the hud just above the junction would have been safe.

When "El Medico" reads this, he will easily believe that I should wish to be able to annihilate the space stretching between him and myself. I greet him with the words of Tibullus: "Vivite felices, memores et vivite nostri!"

[By a strange coincidence we have both El Medico and Horticola in our present number. We embrace the occasion to place their hands together, and congratulate them as "fratres gemini" in grape grafting under difficulties. - Ed].