DURATION OF VARIETIES OF PLANTS. 



a vulgar error, and he commenced a series of experiments with the express view of prov 

 ing it to be so. Instead, however, of holding an imaginary conversation with the old 

 trees, after the fashion of your correspondent, Mr. Marshall, he allowed them to 

 speak for themselves; he questioned and cross-questioned them, with an ingenuity and per- 

 severance as trees were never questioned before, in the vain hope to shake their testimony 

 and non-suit the nurserymen; but they told him plainly, repeatedly, and decisively, in a 

 language not to be misunderstood, that their doom was sealed; that the vigor of youth, 

 and the productiveness of mature age, had passed away; that they were no longer able to 

 sustain their former labors, and nothing but increasing infirmities remained for them. 



An account of his experiments in this matter, was the subject of his first communica- 

 tion to the Royal Society, in 1795, and in a communication to the Horticultural Society, 

 in 1824, when his views had been subjected to much criticism and no small amount of ri- 

 dicule, he stated that, " every experiment which seemed to afibrd the slightest prospect 

 of success, was tried by himself and others, to propagate the old varieties of apple and 

 pear, which formerly constituted the orchards of Herefordshire, without a single healthy 

 or efficient tree having been obtained;" and what Andrew Knight, and other practical 

 men, found by repeated experiments to be impracticable, no man, that I am aware of, has 

 yet proved by experiments in the climate of England, to be feasible; and that, I appre- 

 hend, is an important fact which should not be altogether lost sight of in this inquiry. 



"Of the apples mentioned and described by Parkinson," Mr. Knight says, "the 

 names onlj^ remain; but many of Evelyn's are still well known, particularly the Red- 

 streak; we had many trees of it, but they appear to have been in a state of decay during the 

 last forty years; others mentioned by him are in a much better state of vegetation, but they 

 have all ceased to deserve the attention of the planter." Dr. Lindlet does not attempt 

 to deny these facts, but offers what we may presume he considers to be a more satisfacto- 

 ry explanation. Besides the main point at issue, three foolish propositions are gravely 

 examined in these anticles, and as a matter of course, are very cleverly proved to be unte- 

 nable. They are these: 1. It is alleged that seeds renew the languid vigor of a species as 

 often as they are sown, and that if an unhealthy plant is multiplied by seeds, the immedi- 

 ate offspring becomes healthy. 2. It is also said that multiplication by seed is the only 

 natural mode of propagation known among plants. 3. Seeds are said hi all instances to 

 produce healthy plants, but this, as Lindlet truly observes, " like the previous asser- 

 tions, will not bear exact investigation." As, besides Mr. Knight, no other writer is re- 

 ferred to but myself, in these articles, I may, in case any readers of the Horticulturist 

 should have access to the Gardeners' Chronicle, be allowed in self-defence to say, that 

 these propositions did not emanate from me. 



Dr. Lindlet, in attempting to disprove the soundness of Mr. Knight's views, goes at 

 once to the root of the matter, by boldly denying that vegetable, like animal life, has its 

 fixed periods of duration: he says, " trees, and other wild perennial plants, have never 

 yet been shown by any trustworthy evidence to be subject to decripitude arising from old 

 age. On the contrar}', every new animal growth is a renewal of their vitality. In the 

 absence of disturbing causes from without, there is no intelligible reason why a forest tree 

 should not continue to grow to eternity." If there be, indeed, no trustworthy evidence 

 on record showing that trees become decrepid through age, the only conclusion that I 

 should feel justified in arriving at, would be, that trustworthy authors must have consi- 

 dered it would be idle and superfluous to insist upon a fact which would seem to be so 

 dent to every one who had ever enjoyed a woodland ramble. And as to ever}^ an- 

 growth being a renewal of the vitality of trees, it is an annual transition trom pas 



