16 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



ble fragrancy. Perhaps no tree presents a more 

 gay appearance in the spring, when dressed in 

 green, and with clusters of flowers of a most pleas- 

 ing blush. The petals may be compared to flakes 

 of white wax, faintly tinged with the finest car- 

 mine ; though some trees have flowers of a damask 

 rose colour." The honourable Timothy Pickering, 

 from long experience, observes, " to bring an orchard 

 as early as possible into profit, plant common wild 

 trees, or what are commonly called crab apples, 

 four or five years old. They should be cut down 

 as soon as planted, and on their young shoots graft 

 or inoculate such fruit as is desired. From this 

 practice, more fruit will be obtained in ten years, 

 than in the usual way in twenty years. The wild 

 tree, if grafted on its own stock, will come much 

 earlier to bearing fruit, and it will be improved 

 both in size and flavour." 



CULTIVATED OR SEEDLING STOCKS. 



When the crab stock cannot be procured in suf- 

 ficient quantity for the purpose of propagation, it 

 becomes necessary to resort to the expedient of 

 culture from the seeds. Seedling stocks, which 

 have a natural tendency to attain the full height of 

 the species to be grafted on them, are generally 

 denominatedyrce stocks. Every planter who is so- 

 licitous to keep an orchard well stocked with fruit 

 trees, should cultivate in a nursery his own free 

 stocks, and graft for himself, that he may realize 

 all the advantages to be derived from a knowledge 

 of the soil and the peculiar properties of his trees, 

 and thereby avoid many impositions practised by 

 ignorant and artful nursery-men. He will more- 

 over be enabled to select such stocks for grafting, 

 as experience shows to be best adapted to the soil 

 and climate of his plantation, and which meet his 

 own particular views. Trees raised from seed 



