342 



Improvement of Fruit. 



70L. XII. 



proportion as this reproduction is frequently 

 repeated, is the change to a great variety of 

 forms, or new sorts increased. It is likely 

 indeed, that to gather the seeds from a wild 

 mazzard in the woods, the instances of de- 

 parture from the form of the original species 

 would be very few; while, if gathered from 

 a garden tree, itself some time cultivated, 

 or several removes from a wild state, though 

 still a mazzard, the seedlings will show great 

 variety of character. 



Once in the possession of a variety, which 

 has moved out of the natural into a more do- 

 mesticated form, we have in our hands the 

 best material for the improving process. The 

 fixed original habit of the species is broken 

 in upon, and this variety which we have 

 created, has always afterwards some tend- 

 ency to make further departures from the 

 original form. It is true that all or most of 

 its seedlings will still retain a likeness to the 

 parent, but a few will differ in some respects, 

 and it is by seizing upon those which show 

 symptoms of variation, that the improver of 

 vegetable races founds his hopes. 



We have said that it is a part of the cha- 

 racter of a species to produce the same from 

 seed. This characteristic is retained even 

 where the sport, — as gardeners term it, — 

 into numberless varieties is greatest. Thus, 

 to return to cherries, the Kentish or com 

 mon pie-cherry, is one species, and the 

 email black mazzard another; and although 

 a great number of varieties of each of these 

 species have been produced, yet there is al 

 ways the likeness of the species retained 

 From the first we may have the large and 

 rich Mayduke, and from the last the sweet 

 and luscious Black-Hearts; but a glance will 

 show us that the duke cherries retain the 

 distinct dark foliage, and in the fruit, some^ 

 thing of the same flavour, shape and colour, 

 of the original species; and the heart cher 

 ries the broad leaves and lofty growth of the 

 mazzard. So too, the currant and gooseberry 

 are different species of the same genus; but 

 .though the English gooseberry growers have 

 raised thousands of new varieties of this 

 fruit, and shown them as large as hen's 

 eggs, and of every variety of form and co- 

 lour, yet their efforts with the gooseberry 

 have not produced anything resembling the 

 common currant. 



Why do not varieties produce the same 

 from seed ! Wliy if we plant the stone of 

 a Green Gage plum, will it not always pro- 

 duce a Green Gage? This is often a puz- 

 zling question to the practical gardener, 

 while his every day experience forces him 

 to assent to the fact. 



We are not sure that the vegetable physi- 

 ologists will undertake to answer this query 



fully. But in the mean time we can throw 

 some light on the subject. 



It will be remembered that our garden va- 

 rieties of fruits are not natural forms. They 

 are the artificial productions of our culture. 

 They have always a tendency to improve, 

 but they have also another and a stronger 

 tendency to return to a natural or wild 

 state. " There can be no doubt," says Dr. 

 Lindley, "that if the arts of cultivation were 

 abandoned for only a few years, all the an- 

 nual varieties of plants in our gardens would 

 disappear and be replaced by a few original 

 wild forms." Between these two tenden- 

 cies, therefore, the one derived from nature, 

 and the other impressed by culture, it i3 

 easily seen how little likely is the progeny 

 of varieties always to reappear in the same 

 form. 



Again, our American farmers, who raise 

 a number of kinds of Indian corn, very well 

 know that, if they wish to keep the sorts 

 distinct, they must grow them in different 

 fields. Without this precaution, they find 

 on planting the seeds produced on the yel- 

 low corn plants, that they have the next sea- 

 son a progeny, not of yellow corn alone, but 

 composed of every colour and size, yellow, 

 white and black, large and small, upon the 

 farm. Now many of the varieties of fruit 

 trees have a similar power of intermixing 

 with each other while in the blossom, by the 

 dust or pollen of their flowers, carried through 

 the air, by the action of bees and other causes. 

 It will readily occur to the reader, in consi- 

 dering this fact, what an influence our custom 

 of planting the different varieties of plum or 

 of cherry together in a garden or orchard, 

 must have upon the constancy of habit in 

 the seedlings of such fruits. 



But there is still another reason for this 

 habit, so perplexing to the novice, who, hav- 

 ing tasted a luscious fruit, plants, watches 

 and rears its seedling, to find it perhaps, 

 wholly different in most respects. This is 

 the influence of grafting. Among the great 

 number of seedling fruits produced in the 

 United States, there is found occasionally a 

 variety, perhaps a plum or a peach, which 

 will nearly always reproduce itself from 

 seed. From some fortunate circumstances 

 in its origin, unknown to us, this sort, in be- 

 coming improved, still retains strongly this 

 habit of the natural or wild form, and its 

 seeds produce the same. We can call to 

 mind several examples of this; fine fruit 

 trees whose seeds have established the repu- 

 tation in their neighbourhood of fidelity to 

 the sort. But when a graft is taken from 

 one of these trees, and placed upon another 

 stock, this grafted tree is found to lose its 

 singular power of producing the same by 



