BUDS. 45 



ded fruit, but when the trees begin to bear, they produce, 

 instead, small, knotty, natural peaches. This, in most 

 cases, occurs through carelessness. As the natural fruit 

 is nearly worthless, and wholly unmarketable, the loss to 

 the planter is very great ; and, as several years must 

 elapse before a change can be eifected, it is almost irrepar- 

 able. The strictest care should, therefore, be exercised in 

 selecting buds. They must be true to kind / that is, they 

 must certainly be of the variety intended. A mistake in 

 this regard would destroy the reputation of a nursery- 

 man, and would be a sore disappointment to the planter. 

 The best way to insure buds of the kind wanted, is, to get 

 them out of the nursery of some well-known nurseryman, 

 whose character, as such, is beyond question for skill, care, 

 and honesty, and who has been long in the business. This 

 last will have given him that extraordinary caution which 

 is only the result of experience and previous disappoint- 

 ment. Even with all this circumspection, it is possible to 

 fail ; but failure will be rare. These disappointments oc- 

 cur from various causes. Marks may be lost or mis- 

 placed in the rows, or the labels, when the trees are sent 

 away from the nursery. A mistake once made is very 

 likely to be multiplied and perpetuated, because subse- 

 quent budders rely upon what they or their neighbors 

 have purchased as a particular variety, and they cannot 

 do otherwise unless they can wait until the trees have 

 borne, and thus test the matter for themselves. If access 

 cannot be had to a nursery, the next best resource is a 

 young orchard of the first or second year's growth. The 

 buds themselves must be of the current season. 



Some prefer to take buds from bearing orchards, as 

 they think it insures the kind. Where the quantity of 

 buds wanted is small, and the trees are marked and noted 

 while in fruit, this may do very well. But large nursery- 

 men will seldom find enough such buds convenient ; they 

 will be difficult and tedious to procure ; as a rule, not so 



