12 HORTICULTURAL MEMOIRS. 



cessary to sow the seeds of successive generations 

 many times, before the requisite degree of har- 

 diness could be expected, and that the process 

 would demand both patience and time. Yet, if 

 it requires more of these than we can expect 

 from the ordinary culivator, it is an experiment 

 which we may at least recommend to those pu- 

 blic bodies, who so laudiby exert themselves in 

 ameliorating the agriculture and horticulture of 

 this country. The difficulty of procuring seeds 

 from seedling plants, could doubtless be obviat- 

 ed in some measure, by depriving the young 

 plant of its tubers, and thus compelling it to di- 

 rect its energies to the other and more common 

 mode of propagation, with which nature has pro-, 

 vided all plants. 



I cannot, however, conclude this speculation, 

 without noticing a formidable objection which 

 stands in the way of our attempts to naturalize 

 particular plants. In every case where the use- 

 ful varieties have been the result of cultivation 

 in a warmer climate from a base and useless pa- 

 rent, it is to be feared that the process followed 

 in naturalization, would again throw the plant 

 back to its original state. This objection ap- 

 plies chiefly to those fruits, such as the peach, 

 the apple, and grape, which, in their present 

 cultivated state, are almost entirely the produce 

 of art. For this reason, it is not improbable, 

 that all attempts to naturalize the grape to. a 



