34 CUE COMMON FETJITS. 



aimed at preserving these in a healthy condition, and 

 perfecting seed which should exactly reproduce the parent 

 from which it sprung, he considered that it must be the 

 j object of cultivation to refine even by enervating the fruit- 

 tree, to subdue its coarse exuberance of vegetation, and 

 while probably lessening the quantity of the foliage, as 

 well as the size and vigour of the seeds, to improve the 

 quality of the pulp or flesh surrounding the latter. Find- 

 ing that wild trees transplanted into gardens altered but 

 little, or, though their leaves and fruit might grow larger, 

 that the latter did not become better in quality, and that 

 suckers, buds, or grafts taken from them did but repro- 

 duce similar plants, he sought in the seed for means of 

 improvement, and found that the pips of wild fruit sown 

 in good soil produced plants which differed somewhat 

 from the parent (mostly for the better) and from each 

 other; their seeds replanted advanced another step, and 

 so on, until a certain ultimate point of perfection was 

 reached, when a retrograde movement began, and if the 

 sowing process were still persevered in the descendants 

 of the good plants became worse and worse, until they 

 ended, finally, as worthless wildings, much where the 

 original ancestor began. The coincidence of Dr. Lindley, 

 in at least the latter part of this theory, seems apparent 

 from a remark in his works that " There can be no 

 doubt that if the arts of cultivation were abandoned for 

 only a few years, all the annual varieties of plants in 

 our gardens would disappear and be replaced by original 

 wild forms." The retrograde tendency seems to be most 

 strong in old trees, and Van Mons therefore gathered his 

 first seeds from young trees of common kinds, yet not 

 absolutely Crabs, and as soon as the trees produced from 

 them bore fruit, which usually proved to be of very mid- 

 dling quality, but at least differing from the parent, and 

 mostly a little in advance of it, he chose out the best, and 

 again planted their seeds. The next generation was found 

 to come more quickly into bearing, while their quality 

 was still more promising ; their offspring showed yet 

 greater amelioration ; and each succeeding family bring- 

 ing forth fruit sooner, and producing a greater number 



