FRUIT GRAFTING 



I have endeavoured to ascertain whether the 

 system of grafting referred to was ever seriously 

 adopted, and the late Mr. Radcliffe Cooke, M.R, 

 who did so much in promotion of the cider industry, 

 and who had so intimate a knowledge of all per- 

 taining to it, informed me that Rudge's Agriculture 

 of Gloucestershire contained an account, drawn up 

 in 1807 for the consideration of the short-lived 

 Board of Agriculture of that period, of a method 

 of grafting very similar to the one in question. 

 It is there stated to have been discovered and 

 practised by Richard Brown Cheston, M.D., of 

 Gloucester, and to advance the growth and fruiting 

 of the trees by many years. Mr. Cooke in a 

 communication to me said : 



" The doubt expressed by Mr. Bartley of the 

 efficacy of grafting or budding in securing the 

 continued propagation of any variety of fruit 

 was probably raised in his mind by perusal of 

 Mr. T. A. Knight's publications on fruit, in which 

 he holds the theory that every variety of fruit 

 has a fixed period of existence and can endure 

 110 longer, whatever endeavours may be made to 

 continue it by grafting, budding, or the like. 

 Mr. Knight's theory had a great vogue at the 

 time owing to his reputation as a pomologist and 

 horticulturist, but experience has long since ex- 

 ploded it. Many sorts of cider apples and perry 

 pears which Mr. Knight thought then, i.e., 100 

 years ago, to be on the verge of extinction are 

 still as vigorous as ever in young trees, the result 

 of grafting or budding. Indeed, a well-known 

 dessert pear, Knight's Monarch, which he himself 

 raised by cross-fertilization, ought by his theory 



257 s 



