.24 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



Engrafted fruits, Mr. Bucknal asserts, are not 

 permanent. Every one, of the least reflection, 

 must see that there is an essential difference be- 

 tween the power and energy of a seedling plant and 

 the tree which is to be raised from cuttings or 

 elongations. The seedling, is endued with the ener- 

 gies of nature, while the graft, or scion, is nothing 

 more than a regular elongation, carried, perhaps, 

 through the several repeatings of the same varie- 

 ty; whereas the seed, from having been placed in 

 the earth, germinates, and becomes a new plant, 

 whenever nature permits like to produce like in 

 vegetation. Engrafted fruits are doomed by na- 

 ture to continue for a time, and then gradually de- 

 cline, till at last the variety is totally lost, and soon 

 forgotten, unless recorded by tradition, or in old 

 publications. From the attention lately paid to 

 the culture of engrafted fruits, we are now enabled 

 to continue a supposed happily acquired tree, for a 

 much longer duration, than if such variety had 

 been left in the state of unassisted nature ; per- 

 haps a duration as long again, or something more. 

 But there is no direct permanency, because the 

 kernels, within the fruit, which are the seed of the 

 plants for forming the next generation of trees, will 

 not produce their like. They may do so, acciden- 

 tally ; but nothing more can be depended on. For 

 example, suppose we take ten kernels, or pips, of 

 any apple raised on an engrafted stock : sow them, 

 and tney will produce ten different varieties, no 

 two of which will be alike, nor will either of them 

 closely resemble the fruit from which the seeds 

 were collected. The leaves also, of those trees 

 raised from the same primogeneous or parent 

 stock, will not actually be a copy of the leaves of 

 any one of the varieties or family, to which each is 

 connected by a vegetable consanguinity. In choos- 

 ing the seed, that apple is likely to produce the 



