DO SORTS DIE OUT. 25 



The researches of the Woolhope Club during the last nine 

 years has fully proved that many of these varieties, formerly so 

 highly esteemed, were either altogether lost, or had almost dis- 

 appeared from the Orchards. The neglect to cultivate these 

 valuable varieties is, doubtless, very much to be attributed to the 

 prevailing belief, that, "Sorts die out of necessity," or as Mr. 

 Thomas Andrew Knight expressed it, "There was no renewal 

 of vitality by the process of grafting, but that the scion carried with 

 it the debility of the tree from which it was taken," or in other 

 words that grafted trees will not live longer than the original tree 

 from which the grafts were taken. This opinion, which still prevails 

 very much in the Orchards, is not however correct. It is found to be 

 wrong by careful observation ; it is opposed to the general laws of 

 vegetable physiology ; and indeed it is now generally admitted by 

 modern Horticultural Science, that any variety of apple may be 

 indefinitely prolonged with proper care and skill. 



The notion that a graft can live no longer than the tree from 

 which it is taken seems to rest upon the assumption, that the new 

 wood which grows from the graft is not a new tree, but only a 

 detached part of the parent. This is evidently a mistake. A 

 branch produced from a graft is as distinctly a new and separate 

 individual, as a branch produced by a cutting. In both cases the 

 bud is the source of the new growth ; and physiologically speaking 

 a seed itself differs little from a bud, except in being more carefully 

 protected, and in being spontaneously detached. The embryo in 

 a seed, the bud inserted in budding, the buds in a graft or in a 

 cutting, differ only in their position ; and each as it developes, 

 becomes a new individual, and not a mere dependent portion of 

 the parent. The embryo of the seed does undoubtedly give that 

 mysterious rejuvenescence of life, which the bud does not, but in 

 each case the new plant has an independent existence, a distinct 

 and separate life. It inherits more or less of its character from the 

 parent tree, but is nevertheless capable of being largely influenced 

 by the circumstances of its own position. 



The Woolhope Club resolved to put the question once again to 

 the test of practical experience. Mr. Richard Carington, of St. 

 John's Nursery, Worcester, at the request of the Pomona Com- 



