8 



hastening to the same fate, though they stand upon 

 the catalogues, and are often purchased, perhaps 

 oftener purchased and cultivated by those who are 

 ignorant of this characteristic, than a newer variety. 



The graft is but an extension of the parent stock, 

 and therefore hable to all the diseases and defects of 

 its original, and when we consider that most of our 

 fruits have been propagated in this manner many 

 years, we may well desire, that some certain method 

 might be discovered by which new varieties, and 

 those of a delicious and if possible improving stamp, 

 might take the place of the old and failing. 



Practical and skilful horticulturists recommended 

 that the seeds should be planted, and that then we 

 would be supplied with a different variety of fruit, 

 but with a healthy tree and perhaps better fruit. 



Those who thought that by sowing the seed they 

 might obtain more healthy trees and more improved 

 varieties were correct in their opinion, for in the seed 

 is the germ of improvement, but it was necessary to 

 observe other facts, and dive deeper into the laws of 

 nature before it could be taken advantage of. 



It has been therefore a desirable thing to discover 

 the law by which to obtain new good varieties. The 

 celebrated Mr Knight, of very extensive experience 

 in the propagation of fruit trees, attempted, though 

 as we may believe on a very Hmited scale, to produce 

 new varieties of the pear by introducing the pollen of 

 one variety into the prepared blossom of another and 

 raising trees from the seeds of the fruit thus obtained. 

 But the method is comphcated, and he never appears 

 to have carried the experiment to much length, — 



