VITALITY AND LONGEVITY OF FRUIT TREES. 



445 



gevity which can never be produced from 

 any other source. By vitality and vital 

 power, I mean tendency to a vigorous and 

 healthy growth, and by power or capacity 

 of longevity, I mean tendency to a protrac- 

 ted continuance of that healthful growth 

 through the longest series of years of which 

 the tree is, in its own nature, capable of liv- 

 ing. 



The facts which might be adduced in 

 proof of this position, are quite too nume- 

 rous and too well known to need specifica- 

 tion. 



The highest power of vitality in a tree it- 

 self, produced from the seed, is, usually, at 

 least, the neck of the tree, as some physi- 

 ologists have called it, or precisely that 

 point where the seed lies when it begins to 

 throw its top upward and its root downward. 

 At this point the tree manifests its vital 

 power by throwing up vigorous suckers or 

 shoots whenever its life is endangered a- 

 bove ground, and often from unknown caus- 

 es. So much does the vital power of this 

 part of the tree exceed all other parts, that it 

 is a fact well known to root grafters in the 

 west, that one inch of root near this point 

 is as effective for their purpose as twice that 

 length of root remote from this vital point. 

 Hence, too, suckers torn from old trees near 

 this point, manifest a constant tendency to 

 prolong a lacerated and diseased vitality by 

 throwing out roots and throwing up suckers 

 all around it. It is, in fact, an effort of na- 

 ture to heal a mortal wound, analagous to 

 the fabled story of the serpent's heads of 

 old. 



The vital power of the seedling tree di- 

 minishes as you recede from this point, both 

 in distance and in growth — both upwards 

 and downwards, and probably its power of 

 longevity too. That is, one inch of root, or 

 a single bud, taken from an old tree, in 

 which the original vital force of the seed is 



expanded into long roots and thousands of 

 buds, have each less vital power and less 

 capacit}'- of longevity than the same length 

 of root and the same kind of bud taken 

 from a young tree, the original vital force 

 of whose seed has been expanded only in a 

 few buds and a few roots ; and the more 

 intimate their connection with this vital 

 point, the neck of the tree, the greater the 

 vital power, and vice versa. This, in case 

 of the root, is determined mainly by simple 

 distance, and in case of the top, by distance 

 combined with vigor of yearly growth. 

 That any other part of a tree could be forced 

 to exhibit the same laws and the same pow- 

 er of vitality and longevity as the seed does, 

 I cannot believe. 



An eminent writer has recently attempted 

 to prove that the bud is as perfect an organ 

 of reproduction as the seed, and that it has 

 in itself all the appropriate elements and 

 organic forces and powers of the seed itself 

 — indeed that it is nothing but a seed " pre- 

 pared for one set of circumstances," while 

 the real seed differs from it only by being 

 prepared for different circumstances. Now 

 what proof is there of all this ? Why, sim- 

 ply, that a bud can, by art, be made to grow 

 and form a tree. But has it ever been 

 proved that it can, under any circumstan- 

 ces, be made to exhibit the same power of 

 either vitality or longevity as a seed from 

 the same tree ? By analagous principles of 

 art, a slip from a man's forehead may be 

 turned down and made to grow into a nose : 

 and yet foreheads are not noses prepared 

 for a " peculiar set of circumstances," nor 

 yet nature's seed for noses ; and if all noses 

 were thus produced by art, it is probable 

 that diseased noses would soon become as 

 common as diseased trees now are. Facts 

 are abundant to prove that the proper natu- 

 ral vital force and power of longevity of a 

 given tree is not found in any bud or scion, 



