40 FRUIT GARDEN. 



subject, that this curious principle of vegetable economy 

 holds true, at least in so far as regards fruit trees. 



The late Mr. Knight, (to whom this ingenious theory is 

 due,) conceived the idea of supplying the lack of fine old 

 varieties by semination. It further occurred to him, that 

 advantage might be taken of that tendency which plants ex- 

 hibit on repeated sowings, to adapt themselves to the cli- 

 mates in which they are raised, so that trees of warmer 

 countries may thus become habituated to colder regions. 

 He therefore devoted much of his attention to the produc- 

 tion of improved and robust varieties ; and his zeal and 

 labors have been rewarded by the Acton Scott Peach, tho 

 Ingestrie and Downton Apples, and many others, in al- 

 most every sort of hardy fruit. Mr. Knight entertained 

 the opinion, deduced, we may presume, from experiment, 

 that more is to be expected from hybrid varieties, than 

 from the mere reproduction of old kinds ; he therefore had 

 recourse to the nice operation of dusting the pollen of one 

 kind on the pistil of another. He opened the unexpa/uded 

 blossom of the variety destined to be the female parent of 

 the expected progeny, and with a pair of fine-pointed scis- 

 sors, cut away all the stamens, while the anthers were yet 

 unripe, taking care to leave the style and the stigma unin- 

 jured. When the female blossom, thus prepared, came 

 naturally to expand, the blossoms of the other variety des- 

 tined to be the male parent were applied. Mr. Knight 

 has often remarked in the progeny a strong prevalence of 

 the constitution and habits of the female parent : in this 

 country, therefore, in experimenting on pears, the pollen 

 of the more delicate French kinds, such as (Cmsanne,) 

 Col mar, and Chaumontellc, should be dusted upon the 

 flowers (always deprived of stamens) of the Muirfowl egg, 



