1S36] 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



225 



the same, but on changing their climate and ter- 

 ritory, several among tiiem vary, some more and 

 others less, and wlien tliey have once departed 

 from their natural state, they never again return to 

 it, but are removed more and more therel'rom, by 

 successive generations, ami proiluce, sulliciently 

 often, distinct races; more or less durable, and that 

 finally iC these varieties are even carried back to the 

 territory of their ancestors, they will neither rep- 

 resent the character of their parents, or even re- 

 turn to the species from whence they sprung. 



Mr. Van Mons has introduced wild pear trees, 

 into the middle of liis nursery, of tiie best perfected 

 varieties; these wild trees, or subnatural species, 

 as he calls them, have not varied and continued to 

 yield poor acid fruit; the seeds of this bad fruit have 

 been sown, and they have always produced wild 

 trees, and although these wild trees flourish in the 

 midst of the perfected varieties, the seeds of both 

 being sowed neither produced any hybrids, from 

 Avhich, Mr. Van Mons concludes, that there can- 

 not be a cross fecundation between a natural 

 species and a variety. He docs not deny that the 

 species can be mnfually fecundated, or that the 

 varieties can also be in like manner fecundated; 

 but he maintains, tliat the |)lants which are the re- 

 sult, never oiler an appreciable resemblance, either 

 to the father or mother. The origm, therefore, 

 which Linnaeus lias given to the Datisca cannbina 

 may be considered fabulous. Besides, he does 

 not believe that hybrids are so frequently produced, 

 as has been alleged. 



Mr. Van Mons has been the first to ascertain 

 and assert, contrary to appearance and com- 

 mon opinion, that double flowers are not a vari- 

 ation, but rather a sign of what he calUfiehleness. 

 This assertion, which may be consiilered bold 

 lor the age, has since been ranked among the 

 number of truths ti-om the fiict, that it has been as- 

 certained, there is less solid mailer in all the su- 

 pernumerary petals of a double llower than there 

 would have been in the seeds, if the flower hud 

 not been double. 



But there is a point on which all will ag.cc willi 

 Mr. Van Mons, which is, that the varietit's ol the 

 most delicate li-uits, are those which are the short- 

 est lived, all things besides being equal; ami from 

 experiments which he has mude, full credence will 

 be given to the assertion, that a scion taken from 

 an apple grafted on a paradise stock, or from a 

 pear grafted on a quince, does not succeed Avell 

 when placed on a free stock. Experiment, in fact, 

 proves, that if the paradise and quince render the 

 grafts more precocious, and give a grenter volume 

 to the fruit, they impair the vigor of the tree, and 

 abridge its litl^?, by not furnishing sufficient nourish- 

 ment; and it is eas}-, therefrom, to conclmle, that 

 a scion taken fi-otn such a tree, has already been 

 impaired. From these facts, Mr. Van JMons not 

 only recommends that scions he always engrafted 

 on fiee stocks, but that those individuals be select- 

 ed which appear most to resemble in vigor and 

 physiology, the varieties which are to be engrafted 

 upon them — a condition very much neglected in 

 sale nurseries. In those establishments, a subject 

 having the appearance of a Beurre, or a D' Arem- 

 berg, there is gralted upon it a Bianquet or an 

 Aurate, if it is found in the row destined for Blan- 

 quets and Aurales. 



As I shall often have occaoion to use the word.? 

 fk^encracy and dHsrioraHnir. or their derivatives, 

 Vol. IV— 20 



it seems necessary that I should here fix the sense 

 in which I employ them. Degeneracy, in cul- 

 ture, is applied to the seeds of fruits and flowers, 

 which have been improved by variation. Seeds 

 degenerate, or have degenerated, when the plants 

 which are j>roduced li'om them, no longer present 

 certain qualities, which are found in their prede- 

 cessors — qualities which they have acquired by 

 variation. Philosophically, this is not a real de- 

 generacy, but, on the contrary, a quality, a return 

 towards the state of" nature. As civilians, we say, 

 that a man degenerates, if he abandons the social 

 state, and the advantages, whether real or not, 

 which he has acquired, at the expense of his li- 

 berty, and goes to enjoy his independence, and all 

 his liberty, far fi-om the chains of society, while 

 philosophy says that this man resumes his rights, 

 and re-enters into a state of perfect nature. 



Deterioration, in pomology, applies to fruit trees 

 and their fruits; a tree is deteriorated by age, dis- 

 ease, a poor soil, bad culture, an unfavorable ex- 

 posure, the weather and adverse seasons, &c.; 

 fruits are deteriorated by the same causes, except 

 the old age of the tree which bears them, wliich 

 old age, when it is not too far advanced, general- 

 ly improves them. 



The degeneration of the seeds of fruit trees in a 

 state of variation, being the pivot of fhe theory of 

 Van Mons, it is necessary that it should be clearly 

 presented. 



As long as plants in a state of nature remain in 

 their natal soil, they produce, during their whole 

 lilii, seeds which do not degenerate. Seeds taken 

 fi-om a Baobab that ■was two thousand years old, 

 produced trees like itself, quite as well as those 

 which it had borne at the age of twenty years. 

 Wild pear trees, in a state of nature, and in their 

 native soils, always reproduce seeds, without any 

 sensible variation. It is not the same with plants 

 born in the slate of variation, either in consequence 

 of having changed the climate, the territory, or 

 from some other unknown cause. The seeds 

 wliich a domesticated pear — that is to .say, one 

 which has been fiir a longtime in a stale of varia- 

 tion — yields at its hundredth ii-uclification, produces 

 trees not only very different fi'om itself in conse- 

 (jiience of its being only a variety — and the bounds 

 of variation are not known in descending from pa- 

 rent to son — but still very different from the trees 

 which have been produced from the seed of its first 

 fi-uctification; and the older a domesticated pear 

 becomes, the nearer do the trees produced from its 

 latest seeds, approach to a state of nature, without, 

 nevcrthcle.'^s, being able ever to return to it, aa 

 Mr. Van JMons affirms. 



Now let us examine how the annual culinary 

 and ornamental plants are governed, which have 

 been for a long time in a state of variation. The 

 seed are annually sown, and whatever be the va- 

 riation, wliich the new generation undergoes, it 

 preserves the principal characteristics of its parent, 

 and scarcely an individual is discovered, which ex- 

 hibits a tendency to return to a state of nature. 

 When beautiful balsams, and excellent lettuces 

 are once obtained, they are easily preserved as 

 sucii, and their variation seems, sufficiently often, 

 rather an effort to become more beautiful, than a 

 disposition to return to the wild slate of their an- 

 cestors. 



From these two extreme facts, and an infinite 

 number of others which are intermediary, Mr. 



