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Agi-lcuimre 'is the most Heal+hy and Honorable, as it is the most Natural and Useful pursuit of Man. 



VOL. XII. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y. — DECEMBER, 1851. 



NO. 12' 



ON THE LIMITED DURATION OF VARIETIES 

 OF PLANTS. 



Mr. John Townley, of Moundville, Wisconsin, has 

 written an elaborate article "On the limited duration 

 of varieties ot plants," which appears in the October 

 number of the Horticulturist. Hitherto vegetable 

 physiology has been too much neglected by Ameri- 

 can writers on the cultivation of fruits and plants, 

 a«d we are glad to see a gentleman of Mr. T.'s read- 

 ing and talent leading off in so important a discus- 

 sion. He is a believer in the theory of Mr. Andrkw 

 Knight respecting the limited duration of varieties 

 of plants, and displays no mean ability in support of 

 the same. In a practical point of view, this theory 

 assumes that fruit trees propagated by buds, as in 

 gra-fting, budding, and layering, can not outlive the 

 natural lifetime of the parent seedling, whatever that 

 may be. Thus, if we assume that the full age of an 

 apple tree is two hundred years, no trees propagated 

 from its buds can be expected to live after that time, 

 no matter when said buds were separated from the 

 parent tree, nor how carefully the young offshoots 

 may be pruned and nourished. If this doctrine be 

 sound, then there is an obvious necessity of going 

 back to seedlings during the natural lifetime of every 

 plant, which in the annual potato plant is of course 

 every year. From reading, probably the same au- 

 thors consulted by Mr. Townlet, we confess to have 

 formed the opinion that in growing potatoes and other 

 vegetables, it is necessary to recur occasionaly to 

 seeds, instead of continuing to propagate from buds 

 indefinitely ; but more extended research and obser- 

 vation lead us to question the existence of any essen- 

 tial difference in the vital force of plants and trees, 

 whether they spring from seeds or buds, resulting 

 from their origin. Neither Mr. Knight, Mr. Lou- 

 don, nor any other practical cultivator, has, to our 

 knowledge, shown any greater deterioration in bud- 

 lings (to coin a term) than may be found in seedlings, 

 if either be badly treated. All living things are lia- 

 ble to disease as well as to die, no matter what their 

 parentage. Hence, the existence of weakness and 

 constitutional deterioration is peculiar to no varieties 

 of plants or animals ; and as buds are one of the nat- 

 ural provisions for the multiplication of plants, and 

 composed of cells precisely as seeds are, why should 

 we infer, without positive proof of the fact, that a 

 being developed from a bud is inferior in any respect 

 to one developed from a seed ? Art gives to a bud 

 no new vitality — no new function. AH that it pos- 



sesses are natural endowments, and as free from de- 

 fects as any seed whatever. If a parent e^g, or seed, 

 or bud, has any constitutional infirmity likely to affect 

 injuriously the generation about to be ushered into 

 a larger existence, the fact that such malady is hered- 

 itary, or communicable from parent to offspring, 

 proves nothing for nor against either system for ex- 

 tending a race. The system being one of nature's 

 contrivances, or the offspring of Creative wisdom, is 

 not defective in itself; but the failure to attain satis- 

 factory results in trees grown from buds, arises from 

 bad management in unwise and short-sighted man. 

 We may not know wherein we fail in potato-culture 

 or fruit-culture in using- the vital agency of buds : 

 but it is more philosophical to attribute our misfor- 

 tunes in that line to our ignorance of the causes of 

 blight and unexpected decay in tubers and fruit trees, 

 and our neglect to comply with nature's laws, than 

 to ascribe it to a natural defect in all buds from which 

 plants and trees are propagated. 



Mr. TowNLET assumes many things as true which 

 are not sustained by any facts adduced by him, or 

 other evidence known to physiologists. He starts 

 with the assertion that vegetable life, like animal life, 

 has its tixed periods of duration. Strictly speaking, 

 neither the life of animals, nor that of vegetables, has 

 any "fixed period" when it must cease to exist. 

 Nor is there anything in common in the modes bv 

 which the bodies of plants and animals are nourished 

 and preserved from dissolution, that should make 

 "the duration" of the life of a tree as fixed as that 

 of a man or ox. Every part of the tissues of an ani- 

 mal, including its solid bones, tendons, and skin, as 

 well as muscles, nerves, brain, and other organs, is 

 constantly being absorbed and removed out of the 

 system as effete matter ; and this loss must be made 

 up by new and appropriate aliment, fresh from a re- 

 cent supply of food, even in adult animals that gain 

 nothing in weight. Nothing like this is seen in the 

 support of a tree, or in vegetable life. The matter 

 organized in the first year of the growth of an oak, 

 remains as a part of its system ten centuries, should 

 the tree stand so long. During all this time, after 

 the cells of the heart-wood are filled and closed, vital- 

 ity has as little to do with them as it has with those 

 in a coral rock formed before our continent existed. 

 There are numerous external influences that operate 

 to prevent trees living any longer than we see them 

 flourish in forests. They are attacked from without, 

 and rarely die, like animals, from any organic or vi- 

 tal defects. If trees were never too thick in a forest. 



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