See Grafting, Encycl., where it is said that there is little hope of producing mixed fruits by engrafting one tree upon another of the same class. We confess ourselves to be unwilling to relinquish this opinion; but it would be very unfair to withhold from the public any fact which seems to militate against it, and has come to our knowledge. We shall therefore transcribe from the Philosophical Magazine the following communication from Dr Thornton, lecturer on medical botany at Guy's Hospital, respecting a supposed Lusus naturae, which he considers as the consequence of engrafting.

In the first volume of the Philosophical Transactions, No XXIX. published November 1667, you have the following communication, intitled,

"Some Hortulan Experiments about the engrafting

of Oranges and Lemons or Citrons, whereby is produced an individual Fruit, half Orange and half Lemon, growing together as one Body upon the same Tree."

We have here orange trees (faith the intelligence from Florence) that bear a fruit which is citron on one side and orange on the other. They have been brought hither out of other countries, and they are now much propagated by engrafting. This was confirmed to us (says the editor of the Transactions of the Royal Society) by a very ingenious English gentleman, who affirmed, that himself not only had seen, but bought of them anno 1666, in Paris, whither they had been sent by Genoa merchants; and that on some trees he had found an orange on one branch and a lemon on another branch (which is not so remarkable as what follows); as also, one of the same fruit, half orange and half lemon; and sometimes three quarters of one, and a quarter of the other.

In the third part of the Reports of the Board of Agriculture, among the foreign communications, we see, with equal pleasure and astonishment, an account of the American apple, which, by a peculiar mode of budding (a), is half sweet and half sour, half white and half red, without the least confusion of the respective halves.

At Mr Mason's, florist, Fleet-street, opposite the Bolt and Tun, there is a production now, September 1798, to be seen half peach and half nectarine. It has all the softness and yellow down of the peach, and the sleek red smoothness of the nectarine; supposed to be a lusus naturae, but probably is rather the sportings of art than of nature, and which perhaps will be the cause why we shall in future see many other such vegetable wonders, which, as we see, were known to our ancestors.