90 Remarks on the Duration of the 



Art. hi. Remarks on the Duration of the Improved varieties 

 of J^ew York Fruit Trees. By A. J. Downing, Botanic 

 Garden and Nurseries, Newburgh, N. Y. 



The cultivators of the finer varieties of fruit are much inter- 

 ested in this subject, which has ah'eady been considerably agi- 

 tated abroad, without, as we think, a recurrence to those careful 

 practical observations which ought to influence strongly the con- 

 clusions at which it is desirable to arrive. Mr. Knight, the 

 venerable president of the London Horticultural Society, and Dr. 

 Van Mons, of Brussels, have given it as their opinion, (of no small 

 importance,) that every variety of fruit has a natural period of 

 duration, after which it inevitably decays and perishes. All 

 propagations by grafting, inasmuch as they are but extensions of 

 the parent tree of that variety, must necessarily therefore follow 

 the same laws, and, finally, as the original stock becomes en- 

 feebled by age, decays and perishes, the same effects are visible 

 in the grafts or cuttings taken from it. New varieties are again 

 obtained from seed, that being the only manner in which nature 

 reproduces and reinvigorates herself. 



When Mr. Knight, some years ago, first propounded this the- 

 ory, he did not attempt to fix definitely the probable duration of 

 any varieties of fruit; but for proofs of its general correctness, 

 he referred to many fine old sorts which then exhibited symp- 

 toms of decay and degeneration, among which the English Gol- 

 den pippin, a variety of several hundred years existence, was a 

 prominent example: most of the trees of that kind of apple, 

 showing, at that time, symptoms of approaching decay in almost 

 every part of England, except two or three of the southern 

 counties. 



Dr. Van Mons, who has reared an immense quantity of trees, 

 both from seeds and cuttings, and also originated many excellent 

 varieties, considers that as a fine and improved variety of fruit is 

 entirely an artificial production — the product of culture alone — it 

 therefore decays with the more rapidity the farther the variety is 

 removed from a state of nature; in other words, as the varieties of 

 apples, for example, are produced in gradually ascending excel- 

 lence, from the austere crab to the most delicious and highly 

 flavored dessert apple, by a successive improvement in each gen- 

 eration, the crab, being the species in a state of nature, will have 

 the longest possible period of duration, while the last most im- 

 proved and most artificial variety, will, of course, soonest run 

 through its allotted period, and become extinct. The Doctor's 

 experiments appear to have led him to believe that some of the 



