2 2 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



originally by nature to be the parent of ten more 

 apple-trees. This astounding fecundity in regard to 

 possible offspring, shown also in most other plants, 

 seems beyond the power of man to understand. When 

 seed is distinctly the food of any of the lower classes 

 of animal life, it speaks for itself as another disclosure 

 of the divine munificence. By-and-by perhaps we may 

 know: for the present the question goes with the 

 enigmas. "Pippins" are properly apples that have 

 been raised from these "pips" as distinguished from 

 grafts, though the name is now restricted to particular 

 sorts. " Grafts " are simply multiplications of an already 

 existing kind. The elder horticulturists thought that 

 a tree was improved by re-grafting, Le. grafting upon 

 itself. Hence the term rennet or reinette a corruption 

 of re-natus* 



The native countries of the apple cannot be said to be 

 certainly known. According to Decandolle it appears to 

 be most truly indigenous in the district lying between 

 Trebizond and Ghilan (North Persia). He believes it to 

 be a native also of the mountains of north-west India, 

 and of Europe in general, excepting the extreme north, 

 Britain included. Karl Koch, on the other hand, whose 

 views and opinions are never to be treated lightly, while 

 he allows the Asiatic claim, considers that the apple is 

 only naturalized in Europe, though the introduction may 

 have taken place in pre-historic times. That it existed 



*" Grafted," the accustomed word, is a vulgarism, as bad as 

 "drownded." See the A.V. of Romans xi. 17, 19, 23. 



