24 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



persons of distinction, and of nice tastes, who have 

 travelled a great distance to view the tree, and taste 

 the fruit ; but to investigate the cause of an effect, so 

 much out of the common course of nature, must, I 

 think, be attended with difficulty. The only solu- 

 tion that I can conceive is, that the corcula, or hearts 

 of two seeds, the one from a sour, the other from a 

 sweet apple, might so incorporate in the ground as to 

 produce but one plant ; or that farina from blossoms 

 of those opposite qualities, might pass into and im- 

 pregnate the same seed. If you should think the ac- 

 count 1 have given you of this singular apple tree will 

 be acceptable to the American academy, please to 

 communicate it. 



"I am, &c. PETER WHITNEY." 



ENGRAFTED FRUITS NOT PERMANENT. 



Mr. Bucknal, an ingenious English writer, has fa- 

 \ T oured the publick with some highly valuable and 

 interesting observations on the subject of engrafted 

 fruit trees, of which the following is an abstract, from 

 Dom. Ency. Mease's edit. vol. v. p. 192. 



Engrafted fruits, Mr. Burknal asserts, are not per- 

 manent. Every one, of the least reflection, must see 

 that there is an essential difference between the pow- 

 er and energy of a seedling plant and the tree which 

 is to be raised from cuttings or elongations. The 

 seedling, is endued with the energies of nature, while 

 the graft, or scion, is nothing more than a regular 

 elongation, carried, perhaps, through the several re-. 

 peatings of the same variety ; whereas the seed, from 

 having been placed in the earth, germinates, and be- 

 comes a new plant, whenever nature permits like to 

 produce like in vegetation. Engrafted fruits are 

 doomed by nature to continue for a time, and then 

 gradually decline, till at last the variety is totally lost, 



