and then
quickly shaken in the air before scorching could occur. The scions were
then grafted into a small chinquapin stock. A few days later one of the
larger leaves of the larger shoot had cleared itself from the wax
coating and had begun to expand widely, turning to a natural green
color. The stem of the shoot turned to a normal brownish red. Two tiny
shoots then broke through the wax of the larger shoot, looking like
axillary bud shoots until closer examination showed them to be scale bud
shoots. That should interest plant physiologists. Eventually the cramped
leaves remaining under wax coating that was unnecessarily dense finally
dropped away useless. The single green leaf and the two scale bud shoots
went on to natural development. The smaller shoot of the other scion
managed to burst through the wax completely and made normal growth.

After these scions were well under way I went out and searched in the
loose dirt and leaves of the old heap and found another hybrid chestnut
scion that presented the allusive emblem of a canary bird. This one had
a shoot of about half of one inch in length and it burst completely
through the wax, to make a fine little twig.

So much for an experiment that led immediately to one of far greater
importance. If canary bird shoots could be made to break rules of
horticultural theory and of recorded fact perhaps we might note the
principle and apply it to the experimental grafting of green shoots of
the year in tree propagation. This is what lawyers might call a _non
sequitur_. Such grafting had always been a failure so far as I knew,
and certainly my own attempts had failed in former years. Grafting of
new growth of the year upon new growth of the year in the growing season
is an established feature of horticultural experiment with certain
annual plants. Why had it so signally failed with perennial plants and
most impressively with trees? Doubtless plants produce in their leaves a
hormone which directs certain enzymes that conduct wound repair by cell
division. If plants which do not lignify for winter manage to direct
successful wound repair after grafting and if plants which do lignify
for winter do not conduct successful repair of grafted new growth it
occurred to me in a speculative way that the reason might perhaps be
sought in the nature of the two different kinds of hormones or of
enzymes belonging to annuals and to perennials respectively. The
difference might possibly depend