228 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



[No. 4 



lent upon this subject, whilst he has given, as the 

 characteristic of good augury, an annual twig, 

 which breaks cleanly and without splinters. 



I have stated tiiat Mr. Van Mons does not agree 

 in opinion with those, who attribute the deteriora- 

 tion of ti'uit trees to their multiplication by repeat- 

 ed ingraliing; now I recollect that Mr. Knight has 

 Avritten, that if the parent tree of an ancient vari- 

 ety i? found, it can be regenerated, by lal<ing sci- 

 ons from it. This expresses with sufficient clear- 

 ness that Mr. Kniglit, the most learned pomologist 

 in England, thinks fruit trees of free stocks, or na- 

 tural trees, deteriorate much less rapidly than those 

 multiplied by grafting, whichaccords with the opin- 

 ion of Mr. De Murinais, and Mr. Bonnet. Mr. 

 Van Mons, on the contrary, maintains, that free 

 stocks or natural and grafted trees, deteriorate in 

 the same manner and with the same rapidity, in 

 consequence merely of their age; and that it is age 

 alone vvhich causes our fruit trees to deteriorate, 

 and their seeds to degenerate. The following is 

 an example in support of his theory. lu the 

 course of his pomological experiments he discov- 

 ered in an old garden of the Caiuichins, the pa- 

 rent tree of ourBergamote de la Pentecote, which 

 is at this time a sufficiently old pear, and all the 

 trees t^rafted from it, are affected with cank'er in 

 slightly moist land, aud the fruit is small, cracks 

 when growing in the open air, is covered with 

 black spots, which communicate a bitter taste to 

 the flesh, and finally it no longer succeeds, but 

 when trained as an espalier, along a wall. Very 

 well: the parent tree of this Bergamote, Avas in- 

 iected with all the evils which are lound in those 

 grafted from the same variety; Mr. Van Mons de- 

 tached rooted suckers or sprouts, and at the same 

 time took scions which he grafted on other stocks, 

 and the trees produced from both, were neither 

 more or less deteriorated, than those of our gardens, 

 which have been fora longtime, multiplied by the 

 graft. Therefore, it is age only, to which should 

 be attributed the natural and gradual deterioration 

 of our varieties of fruit trees, as well as the equal- 

 ly gradual degeneracy of their seeds. I say nat- 

 ural and gradual deterioration, for Mr. Van Mons 

 is not ignorant that there arc certain morbific traits, 

 which are communicated from the stock to the 

 grafl, and from the grafl to the stock. 



The subject of deterioration naturally leads to 

 the inquiry how many years a variety of pear mav 

 jive. Mr. Van Mons estimates that it may live 

 from two to three hundred years, and that if at 

 this age it is not exhnct, its fruit is so deteriorated, 

 that it no longer merits being cultivated; conse- 

 quently he does not believe in the anticputy of fruits 

 which, it is said, have been transmitted to us from 

 the Romans. 



Mr. Knight is of opinion, the deterioration is still 

 more rapid, and assigns a shorter term to the ex- 

 istence of our varieties of fruit trees. This author 

 even asserts, that it is not long since our old fruits 

 were still better than they now are. But it is 

 doubtful whether Mr. Knight can furnish the 

 proof 



The thorns, with which the greater part of 

 young fi-ee f)ear slocks are covered, disappear with 

 age; but the tree can reproduce them in an advan- 

 ced age, if a sprout is developed on the trunk, or if 

 its vigor is augmented. Tims have I seen, in Mr. 

 Van Mons' garden, pear trees renew their thorns, 

 9.1ler having ceased to produce them. In Paris it 



is only necessary to head down a large orange tree? 

 without thorns, to see it throw out new branches 

 covered with them. 



There are free stocks of old varieties of pears, 

 which have the power of causing the fi'uiis which 

 are engrafted upon them, to grow to an extraordi- 

 nary size — double, says Mr. Van Mons. It is a 

 quality which the free stocks of new varieties do 

 not possess, and which Mr. Van IVIons cannot ex- 

 plain. In fact we often see trees which constantly 

 yield fruit larger than others of the same variety, 

 all things, in other respects, being equal. An in- 

 verse appearance, is often presented, to the florists 

 of Paris; there are lemon trees, whose slocks be- 

 come diseased, and cause the oranges which have 

 been budded upon them to perish, in four or five 

 years. 



V/hen the young pear trees, procreated from 

 parent to son by uninterrupted generations, begin 

 to produce edible fruit, tiiey are generally summer 

 fruits. It is necessary that the uninterrupted gen- 

 erations be more numerous, to obtain winter fruits, 

 or sucli as keep long. 



In proportion as the uninterrupted generations 

 are multiplied ii'om parent to son, the great differ- 

 ences which are first observed between the trees 

 and their fruit, diminish in an inverse j)rogression; 

 wild forms, or appearances are no longer seen; all 

 of them have sn air of civilization, and their fi-uits 

 no longer deviate from ffood. In the last package 

 of fruit which Mr. Van Mons sent me, a consid- 

 erable number of the pears naturally fake rank 

 among our Beurres and Doyennes in form, volume 

 and quality, and all these fruits lo the number of 

 sixty varieties, were the firstof a sixth generation, 

 without interruption from parent to son. 



Mr. Van Mons remarks, that among the new 

 pears, he has obtained, there are some vvhich were 

 several years in taking a fixed form; that several 

 did not assume one, for from twelve to fifteen years, 

 and that others never did. Our old varieties, with- 

 out doubt, have been in the same situation, and he 

 gives as an example of pears, which have never 

 assumed a determinate form, our Bon (Jhretien 

 D'Hiver; still it is a pear the most easily recogni- 

 sed, notwithstanding the variation of its form and 

 size. 



Mr. Van Mons considers it an invariable prin- 

 ciple, that a graft does not bloom sooner than the 

 parent stock fi-om which it was taken. Neverthe- 

 less, a contrary opinion universally prevails among 

 nurserymen. They often graft scions taken from 

 young trees, in the hope of hastening their flora- 

 tion, and sometimes succeed; but, in this case it 

 may be said, that the scion taken was predisposed 

 to bloom, and that it would equally as soon have 

 done so, if it had remained on the parent tree. It 

 is the same with regard to buds. The first ihlra- 

 pam pendtila, which bloomed in France, was a bud 

 taken from a stock in the Garden of Plants, which 

 did not begin to bloom, until several years after. 

 Finally, there are so many accidental causes, 

 which advance or retard the floration of grafts and 

 their parent stocks, that it is difficult to ascertain 

 whether they should bloom sinudtaneousl}', or one 

 after the other, while numerous facts attest, that 

 the mulli|)!ication, repeated by bud, accelerates 

 the floration and diminishes the volume, in a great 

 number of sj)ecies. 



Mr. Van Mons has ascertained, that it is ad- 

 vantagCQus to collect the fruit a little before it is 



