PROPAGATION BY SEEDS. 41 



the Grey Achan, the Green Yair, or others, that are hardy, 

 or of British origin. 



As this is a subject of interest, we may state some of the 

 precautions adopted by Mr. Knight and his followers, in 

 conducting their experiments. It is, in the first place, a 

 rule to employ seeds of the finest kinds of fruit, and to 

 take them from the largest, ripest, and best flavored speci- 

 mens of the fruit. When Mr. Knight wished to procure 

 some of the old apples in a healthy and renovated state, he 

 prepared stocks of such good sorts as could be propagated 

 from cuttings ; he planted them against a south wall in 

 rich soil, and then grafted them with the kind required. 

 In the following winter the young trees were taken up, 

 their roots retrenched, and then replanted in the same 

 place, by which mode of treatment they were thrown into 

 bearing when only two years old. Not more than a couple 

 of apples were allowed to remain on each tree, and these, 

 in consequence, attained a larger size and more perfect 

 maturity. The seeds of these apples were then sown, in 

 the hope of procuring an equally excellent offspring. In 

 the case of cross-impregnation, every seed, though taken 

 from the same fruit, produces a different variety, and these 

 varieties, as might be anticipated, prove to be of very vari- 

 ous merit. In general t^ose seeds are to be preferred 

 which are plump and round. An estimate of the value of 

 the seedling trees may be formed, even during the first 

 summer of their growth, from the resemblance they bear, 

 in bud and foliage, to highly cultivated and approved trees. 

 The leaves of promising seedlings improve in character, 

 becoming thicker, rounder, and more downy every season. 

 Those whose buds in the annual wood are full and promi- 

 nent, generally prove more productive than those whose 

 buds are small and seemingly shrunk into the bark. Early 



