It will be advisable to explain a little more fully, by an example, what I mean by sterility being incidental on other differences, and not a specially endowed quality.

As the capacity of one plant to be grafted or budded on another is unimportant for their welfare in a state of nature, I presume that no one will suppose that this capacity is a SPECIALLY endowed quality, but will admit that it is incidental on differences in the laws of growth of the two plants.

We can sometimes see the reason why one tree will not take on another from differences in their rate of growth, in the hardness of their wood, in the period of the flow or nature of their sap, etc.

; but in a multitude of cases we can assign no reason whatever.

Great diversity in the size of two plants, one being woody and the other herbaceous, one being evergreen and the other deciduous, and adaptation to widely different climates, does not always prevent the two grafting together.