042 



POMACE/E. X. PYRUS. 



Propagation and culture. The apple, like most other hardy 

 trees, may be propagated by seeds, cuttings, suckers, layers, and 

 by engrafting and budding ; by seeds to obtain new varieties, 

 and stocks, and by other modes for continuing such as are in 

 esteem. 



By seeds. The first business here is the choice of seeds, 

 which should be taken from fruits having the properties it is 

 desired to perpetuate or improve in the greatest degree. The 

 sorts of apples proper for crossing or reciprocal impregnation, 

 appear to be those which have a great many qualities in common, 

 and some different qualities. Tims the golden-pippin has been 

 crossed by other pippins or rennets, and not by calvils or cod- 

 lings. A small-sized apple, crossed by a large sort, will be 

 more certain of producing a new variety than the above mode ; 

 but will be almost equally certain of producing a variety desti- 

 tute of valuable qualities ; the qualities of parents of so opposite 

 natures being as it were crudely jumbled together in the off- 

 spring. Mr. Knight's mode of cutting out the stamens of the 

 blossoms to be impregnated, and afterwards when the stigmas are 

 mature, introducing the pollen of that intended for the male 

 parent, is unquestionably the most scientific mode of performing 

 the operation. In this way he produced those excellent apples, the 

 Donnton, red and yellow Ingestrie, and G range pipjrins from the 

 same parents ; viz. the seed of the orange-pippin impregnated 

 by the pollen of the golden-pippin. The Bringmood-pippin he 

 produced from the golden-pippin, dusted with the pollen of the 

 golden-harvey apple. 



The seeds may be sown in autumn in light earth, covered 

 an inch, and either in pots or beds. The end of the first 

 year they should be transplanted into nursery rows, from 

 six inches to a foot apart every way. Afterwards they 

 should be removed to where they are to produce fruit, and for 

 this purpose the greater the distance between the plants the 

 better. It should not be less than 6 or 8 feet every way. The 

 quickest way of bringing them into a bearing state, Williams, of 

 Pitmaston, considers, (Hort. trans. 1. p. 333.) is to let the plants 

 be furnished with lateral shoots from the ground upwards; so 

 disposed as that the leaves of the upper shoots may not shade 

 those situated underneath, pruning away only trifling shoots. 

 This mode of treatment occurred to him on reflecting on Mr. 

 Knight's theory of the circulation of the sap. Observing the 

 change in the appearance of the leaves of his seedling plants, 

 as the trees advanced in growth, he thought it might be possible 

 to hasten the progress of the plants, and procure that peculiar 

 organization of the leaf necessary to the form.ition of blossom- 

 buds at a much earlier age. He, in consequence, adopted the 

 mode above described, and succeeded in procuring fruit from 

 seedling apples at four, five, and six years of age, instead of 

 waiting eight, ten, and even fifteen years, which must be the 

 case by the usual mode of planting close, and pruning to naked 

 steins. Macdonald, an eminent Scotch horticulturist, has also 

 succeeded in obtaining fruit from seedlings at an early period 

 by grafting, already stated as one of the uses of that mode of 

 propagation. In 1808, he selected some blossoms of the non- 

 pareil, which he impregnated with the pollen of the golden-pip- 

 pin and of the Newton-pippin. When the apples were fully 

 ripe, he selected some of the best, from which he took the seeds 

 and sowed them in pots, which he placed in a frame. He had 

 eight or nine seedlings, which he transplanted into the open 

 ground in the spring of 1809. In 181 1, he picked out a few of 

 the strongest plants and put them singly into pots. In spring, 

 1812, he observed one of the plants showing fruit-buds. He 

 took a few of the twigs and grafted them on a healthy stock on 

 a wall, and in 1813 he had a few apples. This year (1816) 

 his seedlings yielded several dozens, and also his grafts ; and he 

 mentions that the apples from the grafts are the largest. He is 

 of opinion that in giving names to seedlings raised in Scotland 



the word Scotch should be mentioned. Ringing has also been 

 recommended by various authors as inducing precocity, and par- 

 ticularly by Hempel, (Hort. trans. I. appendix,) who says he 

 has proved it experimentally. A very common practice among 

 those who raise fruit trees from seed is, in the second or third 

 season to select such plants only as have broad and roundish 

 leaves, throwing away the rest, experience having taught that the 

 former more frequently produce fruit of improved quality, or at 

 least larger, than those plants which have narrow-pointed leaves. 

 The width and thickness of the leaf, Mr. Knight observes, 

 " generally indicate the size of the future apple, but will by no 

 means convey any correct idea of the merits of the future fruit. 

 Where these have the character of high cultivation, the qualities 

 of the fruit will be far removed from those of the native species, 

 but the apple may be insipid or highly flavoured, green, or 

 deeply coloured, and of course well or ill calculated to answer 

 the purposes of the planter. An early blossom in the spring, 

 and an early change of colour in the autumnal leaf, would natu- 

 rally be supposed to indicate a fruit of early maturity : but I 

 have never been able to discover any criterion of this kind on 

 which the smallest dependence can be placed. The leaves of 

 some varieties will become yellow and fall off, leaving the fruit 

 green and immature ; and the leaves in other kinds will retain 

 their verdure long after the fruit has perished. The plants 

 whose buds in the annual wood are full and prominent, are 

 usually more productive than those whose buds are small and 

 shrunk in the bark ; but their future produce will depend much 

 on the power the blossoms possess of bearing the cold, and this 

 power varies in the different varieties, and can only be known 

 from experience. Those which produce their leaves and blos- 

 soms rather early in the spring are generally to be preferred, for 

 though they are more exposed to injury from frost, they less 

 frequently suffer from the attacks of insects, the more common 

 cause of failure. The disposition to vegetate early or late in the 

 spring, is, like almost every other quality in the apple tree, trans- 

 ferred in different degrees to its offspring ; and the planter must 

 therefore seek those qualities in the parent tree which he wishes 

 to find in the future seedling plants. The most effective method 

 I have been able to discover of obtaining such fruits as vegetate 

 very early in the spring has been by introducing the pollen of 

 the Siberian crab into the blossom of a rich and early apple, and 

 by transferring in the same manner the pollen of the apple to the 

 Siberian crab. The leaf and habit of many of the plants that I 

 have thus obtained possess much of the character of the apple, 

 whilst they vegetate as early in the spring as the Siberian crab, 

 and I possess at least two plants of this family." Abercrombie 

 observes, " as the codling is a sort found to change very little 

 from seed, or not for the worse, new plants of it are sometimes 

 raised by sowing the kernels, not by way of experiment for a 

 new uncertain variety, but with some dependence in having a 

 good sort resembling the parent" 



By cuttings. Every variety of apple may be grown from cut- 

 tings, though some with much greater facility than others. All 

 those of the Burknott and codling tribes grow as well this way 

 as by any other, and some allege that the trees so raised are not 

 liable to canker (Hort. trans. 1. p. 120.), which is supposed to 

 be owing to their putting out no tap root, but spreading their 

 numerous fibres from the knots or burrs horizontally. Even the 

 golden-pippin may be continued in this way, and the trees have 

 remained seven years in perfect health, when grafts taken not 

 only from the trees, but from the very branch, part of which was 

 divided into cuttings, cankered in two or three years. " AH 

 apple trees raised in this way," Bigg observes, " from healthy 

 one-year old branches, with blossom-buds upon them, will con- 

 tinue to go on bearing the finest fruit in a small compass for 

 many years. Such trees are peculiarly proper for forcing, and 

 not liable to canker" (Hort. trans. 1. p. 65.). The cuttings are 



