Roman garden science

80.Of vegetable physiology they seem to have been very ignorant. It was a doctrine held by Virgil, Columella, and Pliny, that any scion may be grafted on any stock; and that the scion partaking of the nature of the stock, had its fruit changed in flavour accordingly. Pliny mentions the effect of grafting the vine on the elm, and of drawing a vine shoot through the trunk of a chestnut; but modern experience proves that no faith is to be given to such doctrines, even though some of these authors affirm that they have seen what they describe.