A Record of the Grafting of Fruit Trees (接菓記)接菓記
事有初若妄誕幻怪。而其終乃眞者。其接菓之謂乎。予先君時。有號長身田氏者善接菓。先君使試之。園有惡梨凡二樹。田氏皆鋸斷之。求世所謂名梨者。斫若干梢。安於斷株。以膏泥封之。當其時見之。似妄誕矣。雖至茸抽葉茁。亦似幻怪矣。及鬱然夏陰茂。蕡然秋實成。然後乃信其終眞者。而妄誕幻怪之疑。始去於心矣。先君沒凡九稔。覩樹食實。未嘗不思嚴顔。或攀樹嗚咽。不忍捨去。且古之人以召伯韓宣子之故。有勿翦甘棠。封植嘉樹者。況父之所嘗有而遺之於子者。其恭止之心。何翅勿翦封植而已哉。其實亦可跪而食矣。抑慮先君以此及予者。豈使予革非遷善。當效玆樹耶。聊志而警之耳。
There are matters that seem at first empty and strange and yet are true in the end; is it the grafting of fruit trees that this means?
In my late father's time there was one called 「Jeon the Tall」 (田氏) who was good at grafting. My father had him make trial of it. There were two bad pear trees in the garden, and Jeon cut them both through with a saw. He sought out what the world calls a famous pear, cut off several branches, set them upon the cut stocks, and sealed them with rich mud. To look at it then, it seemed empty folly. Even when it came to the budding and the putting forth of leaves, it seemed strange still. But only after the summer shade grew thick and dense and the autumn fruit hung in clusters did I believe that the end of it was true, and the doubt of its being empty and strange then vanished from my mind.
It is nine years now since my father died. Never have I looked at the trees and eaten their fruit without thinking of his stern face. Sometimes I hold to the tree and sob and cannot bear to leave it and go. And the men of old, for the sake of Duke Shao (召伯) and Han Xuanzi (韓宣子), did not cut down the sweet pear tree and banked up and planted fine trees. How much the more a thing that a father once had and left to his son. How should the mind that reveres it stop at not cutting down and at banking up and planting? Its fruit, too, is worth eating upon one's knees.
And when I consider it, that my father let this come down to me — how should it not have been that he wished me to take this tree for my model in mending what is wrong and moving toward the good? I merely write it down for a warning, and no more.