PROPAGATION AND IMPROVEMENT. 13 



on the Brussels stock. Cherries on the Mahaleb and 

 wild stock. For all trees which are apt to exhaust 

 themselves by the exudation of gum, budding is 

 preferable to grafting. Medlars may be grafted on 

 a white thorn or on a pear. 



Tigs, vines, gooseberries, and currants are not grafted, 

 but are increased by cuttings or layers. Raspberries 

 and strawberries may be grown from seed, but are 

 generally increased, the first by dividing of the suckers, 

 the last by the runners. 



Raising plants from seed is a method of propagation 

 requiring great care and skill, and often leading to the 

 production of choice new varieties. The seed chosen 

 may be either itself of the choicest kind, or scientifically 

 improved by crossing two fine sorts. If it be wished 

 to raise trees or plants of one particular variety, not 

 only should the best tree be chosen, but the finest fruit, 

 ripened under the most favourable circumstances, must 

 also be selected. However fine the old tree from which 

 seed is taken, the seedlings from it will not do it credit, 

 unless it be grown in a genial position, and unless its 

 fruit, the germ of the future seedlings, be grown to 

 high perfection, under genial influences, and brought to 

 full maturity in size, ripeness, and development of juice, 

 flavour, and saccharine matter. To give a good chance 

 of success with seedlings, therefore, raise them from the 

 finest fruit, plucked from the finest tree, and ripened 

 and brought to perfection under the most favourable 

 circumstances possible. 



Cross fertilization, or setting the flower of one tree 

 with the pollen from the flower of another, is a valuable 

 way of improving kinds. It is generally only varieties { 

 of the same fruit which can be thus crossed, but V 

 valuable qualities are often united by it. In this 

 crossing the offspring will most resemble the stock from 

 which the pollen is taken, but will also follow some of 

 the constitutional peculiarities of that producing the 

 seed. That fine plum, Coe's golden drop, was grown 

 from a greengage, the flower of which had been set with 

 pollen from the yellow Magnum Bonum: the Grafton 



