GEXL'RAt. PRACTICE. RAISIXG I'RUIT TREES. <ig 



on healthy, free-bearing kinds can be adopted. This often proves satisfactory in 

 inducing early fruiting, and it is much the same in respect to other kinds, but stone 

 fruits instead of grafting require to be budded, and tender kinds grown in suitable tempe- 

 ratures under glass. The time taken for seedling trees to bear fruit varies most in the 

 apple and pear. Old writers name five to thirteen years for the apple, and twelve to 

 eighteen years for the pear to reach a bearing stage, but seedling apples are now fruited 

 in five or six years, and pears in six or seven years from the pip. The cherry and plum 

 may be fruited in four or five years from the stone, and the gooseberry in the third 

 or fourth year. Apricot, nectarine, and peach seedlings produce fruit in the third, 

 fourth, or fifth year, raspberries in three years, and strawberries in one or two years. 

 Grapes arc had in three or four years from sowing the seeds or stones, and pineapples 

 from seed have fruited in the third year. 



Cuttings. Currants, figs, filberts, gooseberries, and some other fruit trees and 

 bushes, are increased from cuttings, but grape vines are best raised from "eyes" or buds. 

 Paradise stocks for apples, and quince stocks for pears, are raised from layers. Suitable 

 cuttings, when brought into contact with a due degree of soil moisture and warmth, swell 

 at the base, the descending sap forming a callus from which roots are emitted, roots 

 also issuing in some cases from the stem itself up to the surface of the soil. Cuttings, 

 strictly speaking, are not new plants, but an extension of the parents with precisely the 

 same habits, requiring the same heat, light, moisture, and food, and, placed in suitable 

 soil, expend their juices in the formation of roots, whereby they are enabled to maintain 

 an independent existence. 



It is essential that fruit-tree cuttings be of firm, ripe wood, not only for the emission 

 of roots, but to secure a healthy root system, and a perfect stem through which nutriment 

 may be transmitted to the fruiting parts in order to secure their abundant nourishment. 

 Well-matured buds and wood emit roots most freely because they contain the largest 

 amount of stored food, consequently develop most sap, whereby a good early start is 

 secured to the buds. There is, however, a great difference in the facility of cuttings 

 rooting ; some do so tardily and sparsely. With those the fruit grower should have 

 nothing to do. Those employed, whether as stocks or growing on their own roots, ought to 

 be such as produce roots freely and abundantly. A fruit tree on a poor root of its own, 

 or on a meagre-rooted stock, must necessarily languish ; consequently no fruit tree should 

 be selected for this method of increase that does not emit roots as freely as a currant, 

 fig, gooseberry, or vine, which can hardly be thrust into the soil without rooting. 



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