3JS pyri's mai.us. 



parf.'iko botli of tlu^ vi<zour and docrepitiule of tlio paront troe or variety. Although 

 the period of duraiion is not known witli any precision, it is thought to be longor 

 in some varieties than in others. It is generally supposed, however, that it never 

 much exceeds two liundrcnl years. It seems that this opinion has chiefly arisen 

 from the |"act. iliat many kinds of the most celebrated liUroj)ean varieties have 

 louir since disappeared from tlieir catalogues, and can now no lonu;er he found: 

 while many others, which were much esteemed in their " ])almy days" of hear- 

 ing, are fast approaching to extinction, and will soon no longer exist. Although 

 the above hyi)i>thesis may seem plausible enough in itself, we cannot but remark, 

 that the want of durability of the varieties in question, does not apply to every 

 set of scions; for many sorts of appli;, as well as several other kinds of fruit, 

 appear to have been readily propagated by means of successive scions, from the 

 times of our forefathers. For instance, the Newtown pippin, the parent stock of 

 which has been dead for forty years, has been successfully cultivated for at least 

 one hundred years from before that period, and is still to be met with in the high- 

 est perfection in the markets, both at home and abroad. Furthermore, experi- 

 ence has shown, that many of the scions of deteriorated varieties, have flourished 

 for a time after grafting, and afterwards, have appeared to die, not from old age, 

 but from disease. Thus Sharroek, who wrote in 1672, inquired " whctlicr the 

 canker in pippins arose not from incongruous grafting;" and Miller and Knight, 

 of more recent times, each complained that pippins became cankered from a sim- 

 ilar cause. Nevertheless, we do not wish to be understood, that the age of a tree 

 is of little moment in the selection of scions ; for, when a tree is evidently on the 

 decline, an experienced nurseryman would not cull scions from it by choice, lest 

 they should prove sickly and diseased; neither would he take them from a young 

 tree, before it had arrived at its proper period of bearing. For every cutting 

 taken from the apple, and probably from many other trees, will be affected by 

 the state of the parent stock. If too young to produce fruit, it will grow with 

 vigour, but will not blossom before it has passed through its successive periods 

 of ripening wood: and if too old, it will immediately bring forth fruit, but will 

 never make a healthy tree. It may further be stated, that stocks often so much 

 influence the scions engrafted upon them, by habit, if from no other cause, that 

 their fruit is essentially different from that borne on the parent tree; and both 

 stocks and scions, in being transferred to different soils or situations, often improve 

 or deteriorate in the character of their fruit, sometimes becoming more healthful, 

 and at others more sickly and diseased. That most ingenious and thoroughly 

 practical people, the Chinese, have long since been familiar with the practice of 

 grafting scion upon scion, one above another, several deep; but in order to secure 

 the agreement between the stocks and scions, they engraft each stock and each 

 scion from its own respective branches. 



The propagation of the apple by budding- or inocnlation is also practised to a 

 considerable extent, but it is thought by many to possess fewer advantages than 

 by grafting. In this part of vegetable economy, it may be proper to remark, that 

 every fruit-tree must have a certain age before it will produce fruit. For exam- 

 ple, the peach will bear the third or fourth year from the stone; but an apple- 

 tree from the seed, must be twelve or fifteen years old, to produce fruit in perfec- 

 tion. And it is remarkable, that scions or shoots from the top branches of a 

 bearing tree are essentially of the same age as the tree itself, and those growing 

 from the roots or trunk near the earth, are no older in point of maturity, than the 

 tree was when of the height of the parts from which they spring. For a detailed 

 description of the process of budding or inoculation, which will apply equally 

 well to most fruit-bearing trees, the reader is referred to our articles on the orange 

 and the peach, under the head of " Propagation," &c. 



The apple, like the pear, may be grafted or inoculated on the common thorn". 



