30S PYRUS MALUS. 
partake both of the vigour and decrepitude of the parent tree or variety. Although 
the period of duration .is not known with any precision, it is thought to be longer 
in some varieties than in others. It is generally supposed, however, that it never 
much exceeds two hundred years. It seems that this opinion has chiefly arisen 
from the fact, that many kinds of the most celebrated European varieties have 
long since disappeared from their catalogues, and can now no longer be found ; 
while many others, which were much esteemed in their " palmy days" of bear- 
ing, are fast approaching to extinction, and will soon no longer exist. Although 
the above hypothesis may seem plausible enough in itself, we cannot but remark, 
that the want of durability of the varieties in question, does not apply to every 
set of scions ; for many sorts of apple, as well as several other kinds of fruit, 
appear to have been readily propagated by means of successive scions, from the 
times of our forefathers. For instance, the Newtown pippin, the parent stock of 
which has been dead for forty years, has been successfully cultivated for at least 
one hundred years from before that period, and is still to be met with in the high- 
est perfection in the markets, both at home and abroad. Furthermore, experi- 
ence has shown, that many of the scions of deteriorated varieties, have flourished 
for a time after grafting, and afterwards, have appeared to die, not from old age, 
but from disease. Thus Sharrock, who wrote in 1672, inquired " whether the 
canker in pippins arose not from incongruous grafting ;" and Miller and Knight, 
of more recent times, each complained that pippins became cankered from a sim- 
ilar cause. Nevertheless, we do not wish to be understood, that the age of a tree 
is of little moment in the selection of scions ; for, when a tree is evidently on the 
decline, an experienced nurseryman would not cull scions from it by choice, lest 
they should prove sickly and diseased ; neither would he take them from a young 
tree, before it had arrived at its proper period of bearing. For every cutting 
taken from the apple, and probably from many other trees, will be affected by 
the state of the parent stock. If too young to produce fruit, it will grow with 
vigour, but will not blossom before it has passed through its successive periods 
of ripening wood ; and if too old, it will immediately bring forth fruit, but will 
never make a healthy tree. It may further be stated, that stocks often so much 
influence the scions engrafted upon them, by habit, if from no other cause, that 
their fruit is essentially different from that borne on the parent tree; and both 
stocks and scions, in being transferred to different soils or situations, often improve 
or deteriorate in the character of their fruit, sometimes becoming more healthful, 
and at others more sickly and diseased. That most ingenious and thoroughly 
practical people, the Chinese, have long since been familiar with the practice of 
grafting scion upon scion, one above another, several deep ; but in order to secure 
the agreement between the stocks and scions, they engraft each stock and each 
scion from its own respective branches. 
The propagation of the apple by budding or inoculation is also practised to a 
considerable extent, but it is thought by many to possess fewer advantages than 
by grafting. In this part of vegetable economy, it may be proper to remark, that 
every fruit-tree must have a certain age before it will produce fruit. For exam- 
ple, the peach will bear the third or fourth year from the stone; but an apple- 
tree from the seed, must be twelve or fifteen years old, to produce fruit in perfec- 
tion. And it is remarkable, that scions or shoots from the top branches of a 
bearing tree are essentially of the same age as the tree itself, and those growing 
from the roots or trunk near the earth, are no older in point of maturity, than the 
tree was when of the height of the parts from which they spring. For a detailed 
description of the process of budding or inoculation, which will apply equally 
well to most fruit-bearing trees, the reader is referred to our articles on the orange 
and the peach, under the hcnd of " Propagation," &c. 
The apple, like the pear, may be grafted or inoculated on the common thorn 
