3 4 CULTURE AND 



them future nourishment and support. The apple 

 cannot be advantageously engrafted on a pear stock, 

 nor will a pear succeed well on an apple stock ; for, 

 although it ma}' flourish and bear fruit for a few 

 years, it will never prove a profitable tree, and will 

 decline and decay sooner than others. Scions from 

 a winter apple tree should not be grafted on a summer 

 apple stock, because the sap in the summer stock 

 is liable to decline and diminish before the winter 

 fruit has become fully ripe. In the memoirs ot the 

 American academy of arts and sciences, volume i, page 

 388, is a communication from the late honourable B. 

 Lincoln, relative to the engrafting of fruit trees, &c. 

 in which he says, "I had observed, for a number of 

 years, an apple tree in my orchard, the natural fruit of 

 which was early, having been grafted with a winter 

 scion, producing fruit very like in appearance to the 

 fruit produced by the tree whence the scion was tak- 

 en, but destitute of those qualities inherent in that 

 fruit, and necessary to its keeping through the winter. 

 This led me to call in question the propriety of graft- 

 ing winter fruit on a summer stock," &c. A pear is 

 occasionally engrafted on a quince, for the purpose of 

 dwarf trees, but it is of smaller growth, and less vig- 

 orous and durable than if nourished by its more nat- 

 ural parent. It is next important, that scions be tak- 

 en from trees that have attained to the maturity of 

 full bearing. Perhaps cultivators, in general, are not 

 apprized of the fact, that, if a scion be taken from a 

 seedling tree of one or two years old, it will retain the 

 character and undergo the same annual change as the 

 seedling tree itself, whatever be the age of the stock 

 into which it is inserted ; and that it will remain un- 

 productive of fruit, until the seedling tree has acquir- 

 ed its proper age and maturity. It is strongly to be 

 suspected, that nursery men, either from ignorance or 

 indifference, have disregarded this circumstance, and 



