ASA T. NEWHALL'S ADDRESS. 365 



were plenty in this market about sixty years ago, not one is to 

 be found, although many young trees were engrafted with this 

 variety about that time. -^ 



We cannot prolong the existence of any particular kind of 

 fruit, by engrafting from old on to young trees, beyond the nat- 

 ural life of the original tree, or the time it would cease to bear 

 fruit by old age, if living. We must go back to the seed for a 

 new generation. 



If I am correct, the importance of budding or engrafting our 

 nurseries from new varieties must be apparent, as an orchard of 

 a variety that is not more than twenty or thirty years old, will 

 last seventy or eighty years longer, than one of a variety of an 

 hundred years old, two hundred years being considered the age 

 of the apple tree. I am aware that there are many who will 

 smile at" the idea that a scion taken from an old and placed 

 upon a young tree, continues to number its years. They say 

 that its age is renewed as soon as it is supported by the sap of 

 the young tree — that it has no affinity to the old tree. If so, 

 why is not the fruit changed ? If the scion, when transmitted 

 to the young stock, does not retain the identity of its nature 

 and species, how could it produce the same fruit of the parent 

 tree ? But it cannot be so. We might as well undertake to 

 renew the age of an old cow by turning her into a new pasture, 

 as the age of any species of fruit by ingrafting from old to 

 young trees. It is true that if the cow was better fed, her hair 

 might look more sleek and glossy, but it would not diminish a 

 wrinkle upon her horns. 



There is no branch of farming or orcharding where greater 

 improvement has been made than in garden fruits and vegeta- 

 bles. Where a quarter of a century since, in passing over the 

 county, we might see occasionally a solitary pear tree in the 

 front yard, and a peach tree at the back door, we now see 

 beautiful gardens of delicious fruit, ornamented with a great 

 variety of flowers ; — one flower only being absent, and that the 

 most precious and delightful in creation — lovely woman; for 

 our ladies seem to have forgotten, or to disregard the fact, that 

 in the first garden ever planted on earth, the woman was placed 

 with the man, " to dress and to keep it." 

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