-] 



642 



POMACEiE. X. Pyrus. 



Propagation and culture. — The apple, like most other hardy the word Scotch should be mentioned. Ringing has also Leen 



trees, may be propagated by seeds, cuttings, suckers, layers, and recommended by various authors as inducing precocity, and par* 



by engrafting and budding ; by seeds to obtain new varieties, ticularly by Hempel, (Hort. trans. I. appendix,) who says he 



and stocks, and by other modes for continuing such as are in has proved it experimentally. A very common practice among 



esteem. 



those who raise fruit trees from seed is, in the second or third 

 By seeds. — The first business here is the choice of seeds, season to select such plants only as have broad and roundish 



which should be taken from fruits having the properties it is 

 desired to perpetuate or improve in the greatest degree. The 



leaves, throwing away the rest, experience having taught that the 

 former more frequently produce fruit of improved quality, or at 



sorts of apples proper for crossing or reciprocal impregnation, least larger, than those plants which have narrow-pointed leaves. 



appear to be those which have a great many qualities in common, The width and thickness of the leaf, Mr. Knight observes, 



and some different qualities. Thus the golden-pippin has been " generally indicate the size of the future apple, but will hy no 



crossed by other pippins or rennets, and not by calvils or cod^ means convey any correct idea of the merits of the future fruit. 



A small-sized apple, crossed by a large sort, will be Where these have the character of high cultivation, the quahties 



more certain of producing a new variety than the above mode ; of the fruit will be far removed from those of the native species, 



but will be almost equally certain of producing a variety desti- but the apple may be insipid or highly flavoured, green, or 



tute of valuable qualities ; the qualities of parents of so opposite deeply coloured, and of course well or ill calculated to answer 



natures beflig as it were crudely jumbled together in the off- the purposes of the planter. An early blossom in the spring 



lings. 



sprin^ 



and an early change of colour in the autumnal leaf, would natu- 

 blossoms to be impregnated, and afterwards when the stigmas are rally be supposed to indicate a fruit of early maturity ; but I 



Mr. Knio^ht's mode of cutting out the stamens of the 



mature, introducing the pollen of that intended for the male 

 parent, is unquestionably the most scientific mode of performing 



have never been able to discover any criterion of this kind on 

 which the smallest dependence can be placed. The leaves of 



the operation. In this way he produced those excellent apples, the some varieties will become yellow and fall off, leaving the fruit 



green and immature ; and the leaves in other kinds will retain 

 their verdure long after the fruit has perished. The plants 

 whose buds in the annual wood are full and prominent, are 

 usually more productive than those whose buds are small and 

 shrunk in the bark ; but their future produce will depend much 

 on the power the blossoms possess of bearing the cold, and this 

 power varies in the different varieties, and can only be knowp 

 from experience. Those which produce their leaves and blos- 

 soms rather early in the spring are generally to be preferred, for 

 though they are more exposed to injury from frost, they less 



- „ ^ frequently suffer from the attacks of insects, the more common 



It should not be less than 6 or 8 feet every way. The cause of failure. The disposition to vegetate early or late in the 



Downton, red and yellow In^estrie, and Grange pippins from the 

 same parents; viz. the seed of the orange-pippin impregnated 

 by the pollen of the golden^pippin. The Bring wood^pippin he 

 produced from the golden-pippin, dusted with the pollen of the 

 golden-harvey- apple. 



The seeds may be sown in autumn in light earth, covered 

 an inch, and either in pots or beds, 

 year they should be transplanted into nursery rows, 

 six inches to a foot apart every way. Afterwards they 

 should be removed to where they are to produce fruit, and for 

 this purpose the greater the distance between the plants the 

 better. 



The end of the first 



from 



quickest way of bringing them into a bearing state, Williams, of 

 Pitmaston, considers, (Hort. trans. 1. p. 333.) is to let the plants 

 be furnished with lateral shoots from the ground upwards; so 

 disposed as that the leaves of the upper shoots may not shade 

 those situated underneath, pruning away only trifling shoots. 

 This mode of treatment occurred to him on reflectinjr on Mr. 

 Knight's theory of the circulation of the sap. Observing the 

 change in the appearance of the leaves of his seedling plants, 

 as the trees advanced in growth, he thought it might be possible 

 to hasten the progress of the plants, and procure that peculiar 



spring, is, like almost every other quahty in the apple tree, trans 

 ferred in different degrees to its offspring ; and the planter must 

 therefore seek those qualities in the parent tree which he wishes 

 to find in the future seedling plants. The most effective method 

 I have been able to discover of obtaining such fruits as vegetate 

 very early in the spring has been by introducing the pollen ol 

 the Siberian crab into the blossom of a rich and early apple, and 

 by transferring in the same manner the pollen of the apple to tne 

 Siberian crab. The leaf and habit of many of the plants that! 

 have thus obtained possess much of the character of the appte, 



organization of the leaf necessary to the formation of blossom- whilst they vegetate as early in the spring as the Siberian era 



buds at a much earlier age. 



Abercrombie 

 observes, " as the codling'^is a sort found to change very utte 



He, in consequence, adopted the and I possess at least two plants of this family. 



mode above described, and succeeded in procuring fruit from . _,, o 



seedh'ng apples at four, five, and six years of age, instead of from seed, or not for the worse, new plants of it are sometun ^ 



waiting eight, ten, and even fifteen years, which must be the Raised by sowing the kernels, not by way of experiment lor 



case by the usual mode of planting close, and pruning to naked new uncertain variety, but with some dependence in lia\ing 



good sort resembling the parent J^ . 



By cuttings.— Every variety o£ apple may be grown from ci- 

 tings, though some with much greater facility than ^^^^^^: ^ 



those of the Burknott and codling tribes grow as well this j 



raised are not 



liable to canker (Hort, trans.l. p. 120.), which is SUPP*^^^^^^^^ 

 be owing to their putting out no tap root, but spreadmg ^^^ 

 numerous fibres from the knots or burrs horizontally. ^^ 

 golden-pippin may be continued in this way, and the ^^^f^ ^^j 

 remained seven years in perfect health, when grafts ta ^ ^^ 

 only from the trees, but from the very branch, part of wnici^ ^^^ 

 divided into cuttings, cankered in two or three year*. * 



stems. Macdonald, an eminent Scotch horticulturist, has also 



succeeded in obtaining fruit from seedlings at an early period 



by grafting, already stated as one of the uses of that mode of 



propagation. In 1808, he selected some blossoms of the non- 



pored, which he impregnated with the pollen of the golden-pij^^ 



pin and of the Newton-pippin. When the apples were fully 



ripe, he selected some of the best, from which he took the seeds 



and sowed them in pots, which he placed in a frame. He had 



eight or nine seedlings, which he transplanted into tlie open 



ground in the spring of 1809. In 1811, he picked out a few of 



the strongest plants and put them singly into pots. In spring, 



1812, he observed one of the plants showing fruit-buds. He 



took a few pf the twigs and grafted them on a healtliy stock on 



a wall, and in 1813 he had a few apples. This year (1816) 



lus seedlings yielded several dozens, and also his grafts ; and he 



mentions that the apples from the grafts are the largest. He is 



of opinion that in giving names to seedlings raised in Scotland 



as by any other, and some allege that the trees so i 



apple trees raised in this way," Bigg observes, xw>tu i ^^ 

 one-year old branches, with blossom-buds upon them, w* ^^^ 

 tinue to go on bearing the finest fruit in a small compa ^^ 

 many years. Such trees are peculiarly proper for forcing, 

 not liable to canker" (Hort. trans. 1. p. 65.). The cutungs * 



