330 REVIEW— -THE HEREFORDSHIRE POMONA. 



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The Hereford-th're Pomona, containing coloured figures and drscriptiom of 

 the most esteemed kinds of Apples and Fears. Edited by Robebt Hogg, 

 LL.D., F.L.S., &c. Issued by the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, 

 Hereford. Loudon : Hardwicke aud Bogue. Part I., price 15s. 

 The Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club is to be wanxily congi'atulated on 

 this sumptuous publication, by the preparation of which they have engaged 

 in a work of national importance. The hardy fruits of li he country are of 

 vast economic value, while their importance as articles of food, and from a 

 sanatory point of view, can scarcely be overstated. Of all the fruits 

 which this couutiy yields in abundance none are more deservedly apprec- 

 iated than apples and pears. They may be profitably gi-own to a 

 greater or less extent in nearly all parts of the British Islands ; in many 

 places they are successfully grown in enormous quantities. Apples and 

 pears vary much in flavour aud quality : some of the most esteemed are 

 also the most prolific. To kuow which are the best kinds for any given 

 locality and cUmate is manifestly important to all possessors of orchards 

 or gardens. As knowledge on the subject becomes more general fewer 

 mistakes will be made, and there is now no reason why a worthless or 

 unsuitable variety should ever again be planted. " The Herefordshire 

 Pomona" will spread sound knowledge on these aud other points ; and 

 we trust this valuable publication will speedily become as widely known 

 as its merits deserve. 



To the labours, intelligeut, unremitting, and beneficial, of the late 

 Thomas Andrew Knight, a native of Herefordshire, and for years the 

 President of the Loudon Horticultural Society, may be traced what may 

 not improperly be called the revival in recent times of hardy fruit 

 cultivation. Dr. Bull (one of the most valuable members of the Woolhope 

 dub) gives an interesting account of Mr. Knight's useful work in pages 

 29-38 of the work before us. He discusses at length the theory which 

 Mr. Knight so thoroughly believed, that a graft can live no longer than 

 the origiual tree from which it is taken. He plainly shows how incorrect 

 it is. " The notion," he says, " seems to rest upon the assumption that 

 the new wood which proceeds from the graft is not a new tree but 

 only a detached part of the parent. But this is evidently a mistake. A 

 branch produced by a gi-aft is as distinctly a new and separate individual 

 as a branch produced by a cutting. In both cases the bud is the source 

 of new growth ; and, physiologically speaking, a seed itself differs Uttle 

 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 develops, becomes a new individual, not a mere dependent 

 portion of the parent."* This unsound theory of Knight's led him to 

 make experiments for the origination of new varieties of our hardy fruits 

 worth J' of general cultivation, with a view to restock our orchards aud 



* Any of onr ri'iKlc^s interested in this subject, and desirous of investigating it, 

 will find im able and full discussion in Dr. liindley's "Theory of Horticulture," 

 chap, xvii., pp. 463 480, ed. 1855. 



