VITALITY AND LONGEVITY OF FRUIT TREES. 



447 



rable. But suppose that by a further mu- 

 tilation and division of a seedling root into 

 some twenty pieces, the natural vital pow- 

 er of the original seed is divided into as 

 many parts, giving an average longevity of 

 only twenty years, or even far less than 

 that ; this, surely, is intolerable ; and yet 

 this intolerable condition of things is the real 

 condition of one half the best apples, and 

 almost all the best pears in this state. A 

 good judge could tell how an orchard fifteen 

 years old, in this state, was propagated and 

 grafted, simply by riding past it. Trees 

 made from buds alone, will die out in large 

 quantities the first five years — those made 

 of slips of root two or three inches long, 

 will be generall}^ gone in fifteen or twenty 

 years, while those put upon larger pieces, 

 or upon the tap-root of a seedling, or 

 upon a sprout from the neck of a vigorous 

 tree, will rarely live over twent3^-five years. 

 Multitudes of apple trees in this vicinity, 

 Avhich have been mutilated and grafted on 

 sprouts and pieces of roots, through several 

 generations of trees, have come into the same 

 state that most of our pears, so treated, have 

 already attained, viz : a condition of either 

 hereditary or chronic disease, which expos- 

 es them to perish suddenlj?", just as the pear 

 does, even when ten or twelve inches 

 through, by what is called the " sun-blight," 

 " frozen sap-blight," &c., &c., and if the same 

 processes of grafting should be continued as 

 long upon the apple as they have been upon 

 the pear, I cannot doubt that it will become 

 as difficult to make our grafted apples live 

 to twenty j^ears of age, as it is now to make 

 our pears live that length of time. 



So far as facts have been made public, I 

 should suppose that the practical results of 

 this mutilation in grafting, were developing 

 their true nature more rapidly here than in 

 any other part of the Union, or at least far 



more strikingly : and this, too, would be 

 naturally expected; for in a soil so exces- 

 sively rich as this, all trees come to matu- 

 rity and decay more rapidlj' than on a poor 

 soil. This is true of almost all our forest 

 trees. Moreover a rich soil operates to has- 

 ten the development of chronic and hered- 

 itary diseases in trees, by the same law 

 that high living tends to the same result in 

 the human family. It seems to be a law of 

 universal nature, that plethora and surfeit 

 tend sometimes to produce, that is, to origi- 

 nate disease, while it always tends to has- 

 ten the development of all diseased ten- 

 dencies, while a barely sufficient diet often 

 postpones the fatal hour both in the animal 

 and vegetable world. Starvation also, 

 doubtless, produces the same results as ple- 

 thora. Hence wrong management and dis- 

 eased tendencies may be expected to show 

 their final result soonest on the richest and 

 on the poorest soils — that is where there is 

 the greatest and the smallest amount of the 

 appropriate food for a given plant. 



In addition to the above considerations re- 

 specting the vitality of seeds and the effect 

 of soil, &c., it ought not to be forgotten that 

 nature has appointed a certain equilibrium 

 between the root and the top, and also be- 

 tween the length of the trunk and the top, 

 which cannot be disturbed with impunity. 

 There are certain laws, also, connecting the 

 shape of the top with that of the root, of the 

 greatest importance to the nurseryman — all 

 of which are more or less disturbed and 

 thwarted by the existing absurd modes of 

 grafting and pruning. In my next paper I 

 shall attempt to apply the above principles 

 to the well known blight in the pear and the 

 cherry, in the west, and the present wretch- 

 ed condition of many of our apple orchards. 



Eespectfully yours, J. B. Turner. 



lUinois CoUege, Feb. 14, 1848. 



