CH. v.] THE SAP. 159 



few years, but not pemianently. Tlie pear-tree 

 affords a stock of tliis kind to the apple, and I have 

 obtained a heaAy crop of apples from a graft inserted 

 in a tall pear stock only twenty months pre\dously, 

 when every blossom of the same variety of fruit in 

 the orchard was destroyed by frost. The fruit thus 

 obtained was perfect externally, and possessed all its 

 ordinary qualities ; but the cores were black and 

 without a single seed ; and exery blossom, ceitainly, 

 would have fallen abortively, if it had been growing 

 upon its native stock. The graft perished the ^\'inter 

 following. 



" My own experience induces me to think very 

 highly of the excellence of the apricot stock for the 

 peach or nectarine ; but whenever that or the plum 

 stock is employed, I am confident the bud cannot be 

 inserted too near the gromid, if ^-igorous and durable 

 trees are required. 



" The form and habit which a peach-tree of any 

 given variety is disposed to assume, is very much 

 influenced by the kind of stock on which it is budded. 

 If upon a plum or apricot stock, its stem will increase 

 in size considerably as its base approaches the stock, 

 and it will be much disposed to emit many lateral 

 shoots, as always occurs in trees whose stems taper 

 considerably upwai'ds. Consequently, such a tree 

 will be more disposed to spread itself horizontally, 

 than to ascend to the top of the wall, even when a 



