PROPAGATION OF FRUITS. 39 



The experience of Mr. J. Cooper, of New Jersey, is op- 

 posed to this generally adopted theory. He says, " experience 

 for more than fifty years has convinced me that, although 

 seedlings from apples will scarcely ever produce fruit exactly 

 similar to the original, yet many of them will produce excel- 

 lent fruit : some Avill even be superior to the apples from which 

 the seeds were taken. This fact has led me to plant seeds 

 from the largest and best kind of fruit, and from trees of a 

 strong and rapid growth ; and to let all young trees bear fruit 

 before grafting, which produced an uncommon, strong shoot, or 

 large, rich-looking leaf. .... I have seldom known them fail 

 of bearing fruit having some good quality ; at all events, they 

 make a stock to put any good kind on, which may afterwards 

 present itself." 



In grafting or budding apple trees, it is best to perform the 

 operation within or near the earth, of such kinds as produce 

 an erect, strong stem ; but on such kinds as incline horizon- 

 tally, or on small, weak shoots, the preferable models, to insert 

 the bud or graft high enough to form a top. 



" I have, in numerous instances, seen the stock have great 

 influence on the fruit gyxifted thereon in respect to bearing, 

 size, and flavor ; and also on the durability of the tree, par- 

 ticularly in the instance of a number of Vandevere apple trees, 

 the fruit of which was so subject to the bitter rot as to be of 

 little use. They were engrafted fifty years ago, and ever 

 since, those of them having tops composed of several different 

 kinds, though they continue to be more productive of fruit 

 than any others in my orchard, yet are subject to bitter 

 rot, the original and well known affection of the fruit of the 

 the primitive stock. I have had frequent opportunities of ob- 

 serving the same circumstance, in consequence of receiving 

 many scions from my friends, which, after bearing, I have en- 

 grafted, and the succeeding fruit uniformly partook, in some 

 degree, of the qualities of the former, even in their disposition 

 to bear annually or biennially." 



The grafts or scions with which the operation of grafting is 

 effected should be of the last Summer's growth, from the out- 

 side bi*anches, firm and well-ripened, and selected from healthy, 



