98 



Nb:W ENGLAND FARMER, 



Octobei 10, 1832. 



the fiuest apples of the llnited States. Wlien I 

 was in New York a few years since, I was in- 

 formed, that the flavor of this apple is much in- 

 fluenced by the apple stock upon which it is 

 grafted. 



10. I have in some British publication read the 

 fact, that a shaddock engrafted on a sweet orange 

 stock, will become sweet, and that the orange 

 grafted upon the pomegranate at JMalta, gave fruit 

 which was red inside. I regret that I am unable 

 to give my authorities for these two last facts. I 

 find them in my common-place book, and would 

 not have put them there, had I not been well per- 

 suaded in my mind at the time, of the high credit 

 dne to the source whence I obtained them. 



11. Dr Darwin says "it is not certainly known 

 whether the ingrafted scion gives, or takes any 

 property to, or from the tree (stock) which re- 

 ceives it, except that it acquires nourishment from 

 it." He afterwards says, " there are no instan- 

 ces recorded, where a communication of juices 

 from the graft to the stock, or from the stock to 

 the graft, has raised the flavor, or the fnnu of the 

 flowers, or fruits of either of them. For though 

 the same vegetable blood passes along both the 

 upper and lower part of the caudex of tlie new 

 scion, yet the molecules secreted from this blood 

 are selected or formed by the diflerent glands of 

 the part of the caudex which was brought with 

 the ingrafted scion, and of the part of it which re- 

 mained on the stock, in the same manner as dif- 

 ferent kinds of secretions are produced from the 

 same blood in animal boilies." This remark is 

 made in Sect. xv. 4, " Of the Phytolngia, or Phi- 

 losophy of Agriculture and Gardening;" neverthe- 

 less, in Sect. v. 2, of the same valuable work, 

 when treating of the circulation of the juices of 

 plants, and after quoting the cxiirinoents of Fair- 

 child and Lawrence, Dr D. says, "I think I have 

 myself observed in two pear trees about twenty 

 years old, whose branches were much injm-ed by 

 canker, that by ingrafting hardier pear scions on 

 their summits, they became healthier trees, which 

 can only be explained from a better sanguification 

 produced in the leaver of the new buds." It has 

 also been observed by an ingenious lady, that 

 though fruit trees ingrafted on various kinds of 

 stocks are supposed to bear similar fruits, yet that 

 this is not accurately so ; as on some stocks she has 

 known the ingrafted scions of apple trees to suf- 

 fer considerable change for the worse, compared 

 with the fruit of the parent tree. This fact which 

 I deem highly important, and worthy of the great- 

 est attention, is to be coupled with that above re- 

 lated on the authority of the American rural phi- 

 losopher, Joseph Cooper, and with those in 5, 8, 

 9, 10. Dr Darwin doubts the influence of the 

 stock on the fruit or flower, or of the graft on the 

 Slock, because of the want of " recorded" cases in 

 point, but he had forgotten that he had himself 

 adduced two proofs of such influence, and had re- 

 ferred to two others. 



12. In the second volume of the Transactions 

 ef the Horticultural Society, London, p. 44, Mr 

 Luttrel gives an account of several pears which 

 were formerly cultivated : among these is the or- 

 ange vert, or orange Bergamot. After describing it, 

 he adds, " the true time to eat it, is whilst the col- 

 or is upon the turn. The fruit colors most upon 

 quince stocks." This is admitting the principle of 

 the influence of the stock upon the fruit. 



13. In the report of the Transactions of the 

 Caledonian Horticultural Society, (May, 1829,) 



Loudon's Mag. 5 p. 334, it is stated, that '^the 

 Society were put in possession by Capt. SniitS^of 

 Dysart, of an interesting account of the efleoyof 

 introducing buds of the Ganges ajiple into brainli- 

 es of the Russian transparent apple, by the odU 

 nary process of inoculation : the Ganges a plW 

 prciduced froin these buds having acquired the 

 peculiar transparency which characterizes |the 



did not like the original, produce handsome straight 

 stinks, I had ai row of young j each tre( s along 

 the main walk budded to the almond at the sur- 

 face of the ground, and when grown tall, budded 

 again about five or six feet high lo the Old New- 

 iiigton ding-stone, a fruit of a globular form. Pass- 

 ing by this row of trees two years after, when 

 the fruit was ripe, I stopped to gather some, and 



fruit of the stock; an effect, it will be obserled, | to my astonishment, I found the iitiit to be of an 

 that goes to overturn the received opinion, liat o\il form ; knowing I ha4 budded them myself, 

 the produce of the bud is in no respect aft'eded i fn'm a hearing tree of the Old Newington, and 

 by the qualities of the stock." I j that the fruit now was oval when they should 



14. Mr G. Lindley, mentions* among oi er i I'^'^e been round, it struck me that perhaps the 

 plans, to cause bad [fruit] bearers to be more [ o- ■ almond stock iiad caused the alteration ; it occur- 

 lific, the KMo/rfi^ereni i<ocJ«; and in his comm n-j ''f'l to "le immediately, that there were some 

 tary on this position, he says, "in proportiot as I P'''"^'' ^'o'^'^s in the same row where the almond 

 the scion and the stock approach each other cl( e- ^""^'^ I'"'' failed, and if there were fruit on them, 

 ly in constitution, the less effect is produced jy j and they retained their natural form, it would be 

 •he latter ; and on the contrary in proportioi to U ''on^'""^ing pi'oof of the almond stock having al- 

 the constitutional difference between the st :k ••'''^^d '''O form of the fruit. On examining the 

 and the scion is the efllect of the former imf r- i ""ow-. I found several stocks of peaches inocidated 

 taut. Thus, when pears are grafted or budodl'l"- ^a'"*^ height as the almonds, with fruit on, 

 on the wild species, apples on crabs, plums uj )n j "lii<^'i retained their usual round form, when all 

 peaches, and peaches upon peaches and almoils, on the almond stocks were oval, and very much 

 the scion is in regard to fertility, exactly in lie ' s". th"' t'"? difl^erence was so plain, you would 

 same state as if it had not been grafted at t ;i have hought them a different fruit, but the color 

 while on the other hand, a great increase of f r- i and favor were the same. I went immediately to 

 tility is the result of grafting pears upon quinc s, I '"'.v Irother who lived then at a short distance and 

 peaches upon plums, apples upon white thorn,! id I 'old I'im of it, but he could not think it possible 

 the like. In the latter cases, the food absor id ! 'i" *e went and saw it himself, and was then sat- 

 from the earth by the root of the stock is comt u-i's''-'' of the fact. I have been thus particular, 

 nicated slowly and unwillingly to the scion ; n- t''-' yo" "'ay see I can have no doubt on my 

 dcr no circumstances is the communication le- j """'• 



tween the one and the other as free and perffct i The New England Farmer, April 17th', 1829, 

 as if their natures had been more nearly thesanje; '' -'n article signed .1. W. and dated at Weston, 

 the sap is impeded in its ascent, and the prop*! '"""""S resi)ecting the effect of the stock on the 

 juices are impeded in their descent; whence arislj,'>afl, that a red apple becomes of a more brilliant 

 es that accumulation of secretion which is sure I<f fed when grafted on a stock that produces red 



be attended by increased fertility." f 



15. I shall close this communication by a bt 

 ter from BIr AVni. Prince of Flushing, Long I.*I- 



fruit ; a green or yellow apple stock diminishes its 

 beauty, and that he had seen scions taken from 

 one tree and set in pale green and in red apple 



and, in confirmation of the principle for which I ; stocks, and that the apples they produced bore no 

 contend. 



resemblance to each other on these two trees. 



The farmers on Long Island, in Kings county, 

 have been so well satisfied of the influence of the 

 stock on the graft for some years i)ast, that they 

 procure stocks of the largest green ap|)le to graft 

 with the Newton pippin, so as to have large fair 

 fruit. Life seems too short for experiments that 

 require many years to bring them to perfection, 

 as I observed above thirty years ago to Fisher 

 Ames, who was very curious in fruit. I then sta- 

 ted to him what Mr K^ght is now bringing to 



,, .1 .1 , i. perfection, that fruit We pigeons, (as the pigeon 



growths than others, and of course gave creator l . , ■ , , , , ^ \ , ." . 



" _ , " fanciers say) might be bred to a feather by mixing 



Floshisg, March IS, KO. 



Dear Sir — You request that I would inf<rm 

 you, if I have from my own experience, ascertiiii- 

 eil whether the stock of a tree has any infliieice 

 on the graft so as to affect the quality of the fnit? 

 In my father's time, I had often heard this sib- 

 ject discussed, and was led firmly to believe tiat 

 the stock had no influence or effect whatsoc\er 

 on the fruit ingrafted on it, but that some sorts of 

 seedlings grew much faster and made stronger 



vigor to the graft, but the fruit I supposed won d 

 be unchanged. You may judge therefore of my 

 surprise, when I was all at once convinced and 

 satisfied that I had been in an error. Having 

 found that the worm which is so destructive li 

 peach trees, would not touch the almond stock, 

 and that the hard shell almond raised from seed. 



the farinie and planting the seed, then repeating 

 the same on the new plant, but the time necessa- 

 ry to carry such experiments into effect 'nas 

 enough to discourage any one from attempting it. 

 I shall however, have some experiments tried to 

 ascertain whether the old French method of graft- 

 ing in and in, will change the form and flavor of 

 fruiftj for after what I saw myself as above stated, 

 I am now convinced it will.* 



I have now to state to vou what I have never 



• A Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden, Lon- 

 don, 1831, reviewed in Loudon's Gardener's Magazine, 

 vol. vii. p. 581. I cannot permit tliis opportunity to pa=s, 



without bearing my testimony in lavor of this admirablf { met with in any author, that the s^raft has anivflu- 

 mi^cclfany, the circulation of which is immense in ,i i j t i r* .i .' rriu u 



Fn„i,.„i ,„^ r„r„„„ IV """"-" ■' ■"liiciisL Hi e„fc on //le s/orft anrf roo< of the tree. The cherry 

 tnsland and turope. Wo gentleman who has the least . , , . . ,,' 



taste for horticulture, ought lo be without it. Seven [ ^'^^ yvhen the thermometer m bard winters falls 

 volumes have been published. j much below zero, is frequently killed by the se- 



f The Editor (John Lindley, the botanist) dissents' *^"'y °^ '^"^ '"™^'- ^^'^^ ^"'"^ J''"''^ ago , 1821, 



from the opinion of his namesake, the practical gardener, j ' 



and attributes the " improvement in the flavor of fruits " i * 1" France they formerly used to graft the same sort 

 entirely to the increased action of the vital functions <"'^'' '"^'^ o**' again three or four times on the same 

 of the leaves. I shall adhere to facts. stock. 



