Book I. APPLE. 697 



4378. Propagation. The -apple, like most other hardy trees, may be propagated by seeds, cuttings, 

 suckers, layers, or engrafting : by seeds, for obtaining new varieties, and by the other modes lor continu- 

 ing such as are in esteem. 



4379. By seeds. The first business here is, the choice of the seeds ; which should be taken from fruits, 

 having the properties it is desired to perpetuate or improve in the greatest degree. The sorts of apples 

 proper for crossing or reciprocal impregnation, appear to be those which have a great many qualities 

 in common, and some different qualities. Thus the golden pippin has been crossed by other pippins or 

 rennets, and not by calvils or codlings. A small-sized apple, crossed by a large sort, will be more certain 

 of producing a new variety than the above mode; but will be almost equally certain of producing a 

 variety destitute of valuable qualities ; the qualities of parents of so opposite natures being, as it were, 

 crudely jumbled together in the offspring. 



4380. Knight's mode of cutting out the stamens of the blossom to be impregnated, and afterwards, when 

 the stigma is mature, introducing the pollen of the other parent, is unquestionably the most scientific 

 mode of performing the operation. In this way he produced those excellent apples, the Downton, red and 

 yellow Ingestrie, and Grange pippins, from the same parents ; viz., the seed of the orange pippin, and 

 the pollen of the golden pippin. The Brindgwood pippin he produced from golden pippin blossoms (di- 

 vested of their stamens) dusted with the pollen of the golden harvey apple. The seeds may be sown in 

 autumn, in light earth, covered an inch, and either in pots or beds. The end of the first year they should 

 be transplanted into nursery rows, from six inches to a foot apart every way. Afterwards they should be 

 removed to where they are to produce fruit ; and for this purpose the greater the distance between the 

 plants the better. It should not be less than six or eight feet every way. The quickest way to bringthem 

 into a bearing state, Williams, of Pitmaston, considers, (Hort. Trans, vol. i. 333.) is to let the plants be fur- 

 nished with lateral shoots from the ground upwards ; so disposed as that the leaves of the upper shoots 

 may not shade those situated underneath, pruning away only trifling shoots. This mode of treatment 

 occurred to him on reflecting on Knight's Theory of the Circulation of the Sap. Observing the change 

 in the appearance of the leaves of his seedling plants as the trees advanced in growth, he thought it might 

 be possible to hasten the progress of the plants, and procure that peculiar organisation of the leaf, neces- 

 sary to the formation of blossom-buds, at a much earlier age. He in consequence adopted the mode 

 above described, and succeeded in procuring fruit from seedling apples at four, five, and six years of age, 

 instead of waiting eight, ten, and even fifteen years, which must be the case by the usual mode of planting 

 close, and pruning to naked stems. 



4381. Macdonald, an eminent Scotch horticulturist, has also succeeded in obtaining fruit from seed- 

 lings at an early period by grafting, already stated (2014.) as one of the uses of that mode of propagation. 

 In 1808, he selected some blossoms of the nonpareil, which he impregnated with the pollen of the golden 

 pippin and of the Newton pippin. When the apples were fully ripe, he selected some of the best, from 

 which he took the seeds, and sowed them in pots, which he placed in a frame. He had eight or nine 

 seedlings, which he transplanted into the open ground, in spring 1809. In 1811, he picked out a few of 

 the strongest plants, and put them singly into pots. In spring 1812, he observed one of the plants show- 

 ing fruit-buds. He tooi. a few of the twigs, and grafted them on a healthy stock on a wall ; and in 1813 

 he had a few apples. This year (1816) his seedling yielded several dozens, and also his grafts ; and he 

 mentions, that the apples from the grafts are the largest. He is of opinion that in giving names to seed- 

 lings, raised in Scotland, the word " Scotch" should be mentioned. 



4382. A very common practice among those who raise fruit-trees from seed, is, in the second or third 

 season, to select such plants only as have broad and roundish leaves, throwing away the rest ; experi- 

 ence having taught, that the former more frequently produce fruit of improved qualities, or at least 

 larger, than those plants which have narrow-pointed leaves. The width and thickness of the leaf, Knight 

 observes, " generally indicates the size of the future apple ; but will by no means convey any correct idea 

 of the merits of the future fruit. Where these have the character of high cultivation, the qualities of the 

 fruit will be far removed from those of the native species ; but the apple may be insipid or highly fla- 

 vored, green, or deeply colored, and of course well or ill calculated to answer the purposes of the planter. 

 An early blossom in the spring, and an early change of color in the autumnal leaf, would naturally be 

 supposed to indicate a fruit of early maturity"; but I have never been able to discover any criterion of 

 this kind on which the smallest dependence maybe placed. The leaves of some varieties will become 

 yellow and fall off, leaving the fruit green and immature ; and the leaves in other kinds will retain their 

 verdure long after the fruit has perished. The plants whose buds in the annual wood are full and promi- 

 nent, are usually more productive than those whose buds are small and shrunk in the bark ; but their 

 future produce will depend much on the power the blossoms possess of bearing the cold, and 

 this power varies in the different varieties, and can only be known from experience. Those which pro- 

 duce their leaves and blossoms rather early in the spring are generally to be preferred, for though they 

 are more exposed to injury from frost, they less frequently suffer from the attacks of insects ; the more 

 common cause of failure. The disposition" to vegetate early or late in the spring, is like almost every 

 other quality in the apple-tree, transferred in different degrees to its offspring ; and the planter must 

 therefore seek those qualities in the parent tree which he wishes to find in the future seedling plants. 

 The most effective method I have been able to discover of obtaining such fruits as vegetate very early 

 in the spring, has been by introducing the farina of the Siberian crab into the blossom of a rich and 

 early apple, and by transferring in the same manner the farina of the apple to the blossom of the Si- 

 berian crab. The leaf and the habit of many of the plants, that I have thus obtained, possess much 

 of the character of the apple, whilst they vegetate as early in the spring as the crab of Siberia, and pos- 

 sess, at least, an equal power of bearing cold ; and I possess two plants of this family, which are quite 

 as hardy as the most austere crab of our woods." 



4383. Abercrombie observes that, " as the codling is a sort found to change very little from seed, or not 

 for the worse, new plants of it are sometimes raised by sowing the kernels, not by way of experiment 

 for a new uncertain variety, but with some dependence on having a good sort resembling the parent." 



4384. By cuttings. Every variety of apple may be grown from cuttings ; though 

 some with much greater facility than others. All those of the burknott and codling 

 tribes grow as well this way as by any other, and some allege, that the trees so raised 

 are not liable to canker (Hort. Trans, vol. i. p. 120.), which is supposed to be owing 

 to their " putting out no tap-root, but spreading their numerous fibres from the knot or 

 burr horizontally.'' Even the golden pippin may be continued in this way, and the trees 

 have remained seven years in perfect health, when grafts taken not only from the same 

 tree, but from the very branch, part of which was divided into cuttings, cankered in two 

 or three years. " All apple-trees raised in this way," Biggs observes, " from healthy 

 one-year-old branches, with blossom-buds upon them, will continue to go on bearing the 

 finest fruit, in a small compass, for many years. Such trees are peculiarly proper for 

 forcing, and not liable to canker." [Hort. Trans, vol. i. p. 65.) The cuttings are to be 

 chosen from the young wood of horizontal or oblique branches, rather than from upright 

 ones ; from six to eight inches or more in length, with a small portion of old wood at 



