ig2 METHOD OF PRODUCING NEW AND EARLY FRUITS. 



Annuals. Similar causes are productive of similar effects on the 



habits of cultivated annual plants ; but these appear most 

 readily to acquire habits of maturity in warm climates ; for 

 it is in the power of the cultivator to commit his seeds to the 



Seeds from a earth at any season ;^ and the projjress of the plants towards 



warm climaie maturitv will be most rapid, where the climate and soil are 

 ripen earliest. * ^ ^ 



most warm. Thus the barley grown on sandy soils, in the 



warmest parts of England, is always found by the Scotch 

 farmer, when introduced into his country, to ripen on his 

 cold hills earlier than his crops of the same kind do, when 

 he uses the seeds of plants, which have passed through seve- 

 ral successive generations in his colder climate; and in my 

 own experience, I have found that the crops of wheat on 

 some very high and cold ground, which I cultivate, ripen 

 much earlier when I obtain my seed-corn from a very warm 

 district and gravelly soil, which lies a few miles distant,, than 

 when I employ the seeds of the vicinity. 

 Ksculent The value, to the gardener, of an early crop, has attract- 



plants. ^^ j^j^ attention to the propagation and culture of the ear- 



liest varieties of many species of our esculent plants; but in 

 the improvement of these he is more often indebted to acci- 

 dent than to any plan of systematic culture; and coatents 

 himself with merely sdecting and propagating from the 

 plant of the earliest habits, vvhich accident throws in his 

 way ; without inquiring from what causes those habits have 

 arisen: and few efforts have been made to bring into exist- 

 ence better varieties of those fruits which are not generally 

 propagated from seeds, atid which, when so propagated, 

 of necessity exercise, during many years, the patience of 

 the cultivator, before he can hope to see the fruits of his la- 

 bour. 

 Attempts to The attempts which I have made to produce early varies 



pro luce ecirly ^j^g ^^ f^.^^;^ ^^^ j [relieve, all that have yet been made; and 

 varieties of , ^ n ^ - ^ /r- • ^i i • 



fruit. though the result of them is by no means sutnciently deci- 



eive to prove the truth of the hypothesis I am endeavour- 

 ing to establish, or the eligibility of the practice I have 

 adopted, it is amply sufficient to encourage future experi- 

 ment. 

 Apples. The first species of fruit, which was subjected tcL experi- 



ment by me, was the apple ; some young trees of those va- 

 rieties 



