2 THE PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIES OF FRUIT. 



ence removed from the natural state. When reared from seeds they 

 always show a tendency to return to a wilder fo)'m, and it seems only 

 chance when a new seedling is equal to, or surpasses its parent. Removed 

 from their natural form, these artificially created sorts are also mvich 

 more liable to diseases and to decay. From these facts aiises the fruit- 

 garden, with its various processes of grafting, budding, and other mean? 

 of continuing the sort ; with also its sheltered aspects, warm borders, 

 deeper soils, and all its various refinements of art and culture. 



In the whole range of cares and pleasures belonging to tiu garden, 

 there is nothing more truly interesting than the j)i-oduction of new varie- 

 ties of fruit. It is not, indeed, by sowing the seeds that the lover of 

 good fruit usually undertakes to stock his garden and orchard with fine 

 fruit-ti*ees. Raising new varieties is always a slow, and, as generally 

 undei'stood, a most uncertain mode of bringing about this result. The 

 novice plants and carefully watches his hundred seedling pippins, to find 

 at last, perhaps, ninety-nine worthless or inditferent apples. It appears 

 to him a lottery, in which there are too many blanks to the prizes. He 

 therefore wisely resorts to the more certain mode of gi-afting from well- 

 known and esteemed sorts. 



Notwithstanding this, every year, tinder the influences of garden cul- 

 tui-e, and often without our design, we find our fruit-trees reproducing 

 themselves ; and occasionally there springs up a new and delicious sort, 

 whose merits tempt us to fresh trials after perfection. 



To a man who is curious in fruit, — the pomologist, — who Aaews with a 

 more than common eye the crimson cheek of a peach, the delicate bloom 

 of a plum, or understands the epithets, rich, melting, buttery, as applied 

 to a pear, nothing in the circle of culture can give more lively and un- 

 mixed pleasure than thus to produce and to create — for it is a sort of 

 ci'eation — an entirely new sort, which he believes will prove handsomer 

 and better than anything that has gone before. And 'Still more : as 

 varieties which originate in a certain soil and climate are found best 

 adapted to that locality, the production of new sorts of fruit of high 

 merit may be looked on as a most vahiable as well as interesting result. 



Besides this, all the fine new fruits which of late figure so conspicu- 

 ously in the catalogues of the nurseries and fruit-gardens, Jiave not 

 been ox'iginated at random and by chance eftbrts. Some of the most dis- 

 tingtiished ])omologists have devoted yeai'S to the subject of the improve- 

 ment of fruit-trees by seeds, and have attained, if not certain results, at 

 least some general laws, which greatly assist us in this process of amelio- 

 ration. Let us therefore examine the subject a little more in detail. 



In the wild state, every genus of trees consists of one or more sjyecies, 

 or strongly marked individual sorts ; as, for example, the white birch 

 and the black birch ; or, to confine ourselves more strictly to the mat- 

 ter in hand, the difterent species of clierry,^ — the AAdld or bird cherry, the 

 sour cherry, the mazard cherry, &c. These species, in their natural 

 state, exactly reproduce themselves ; to use a common phrase, they 

 " come the same " from seed. This they have done for centuries, and 

 doubtless will do forever, so long as they exist under natural circTim- 

 stances only. 



On the other hand, suppose we select one of these sjyecies of fruit-trees 

 and adopt it into our gardens. So long as we cultivate that indi- 

 vidual tree, or any part of it, in the shape of sucker, graft, or bud, its 

 natux-e will not be materially altered. It may, indeed, through cultivar 



