PROPAGATION BY SEEDS. 39 



the peach-orchards of America, for instance, which are 

 planted with the kernels of choice sorts, there are seldom 

 more than a few trees affording fruit fit for the table, the 

 produce of the majority "being so worthless that it is usual- 

 ly employed for feeding hogs. Notwithstanding this em- 

 barrassing circumstance, there are some considerations 

 which render this mode of propagation at once interesting 

 and important to horticulturists. It is the only way by 

 which we can procure new kinds to supply the place of 

 those which are falling into decay ; and to some extent it 

 affords the means of adapting the more tender sorts to the 

 rigor of our climate. 



It is well known that some of the favorite cider ap- 

 ples of the seventeenth century have become extinct, 

 and others are fast verging into decrepitude ; and hence 

 the conclusion has been drawn, that all our present 

 fruits, as they are artificial in their constitution, are 

 also limited in their duration. Each variety spring- 

 ing from an individual at first, however extended by 

 grafting or budding, partakes of the qualities of the 

 individual ; and where the original is old, there is in- 

 herent in the derivatives the tendency to decay incident to 

 old age. It is assumed that all the individual trees of any 

 given variety, such as the Grolden Pippin, or the Gray 

 Leadington, are in a lax sense equivalent to one indivi- 

 dual. By careful management, the health and life of this 

 composite individual may be prolonged ; and grafts insert- 

 ed into vigorous stocks, and nursed in favorable situations, 

 may long survive their parent tree ; still there is a sure 

 progress towards extinction, and the only renewal of the 

 individual, the only true reproduction, is by sowing seed. 

 It is admitted by those who have paid attention to the 



