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PROPAGATION. 28 



the first season in order to secure as vigorous growth of 

 the original plant as possible. The following season the 

 plants will bear fruit, when the best and most promising 

 may be preserved and the others destroyed. It must 

 not, however, be expected that a one-year-old seedling 

 is a fully developed plant, and for this reason it is well 

 to preserve all which give promise of excellence. 



If the seed is sown as soon as it is removed from the 

 freshly-gathered fruit in summer, it will sprout in two 

 or three weeks, and produce plants with several well de- 

 veloped leaves before the end of the season, and, if given 

 protection the first winter, they will make a vigorous 

 growth the next, and become somewhat larger plants 

 than those raised from seed sown in the spring of the 

 eame year. It is best to give the seedlings some protec- 

 tion in cold climates in order to secure their full develop- 

 ment. 



When the plants come into bloom they should be 

 carefully examined, and those with pistillate flowers 

 as these will usually be the least numerous marked so 

 that they will be known when the fruit is ripe. When 

 a variety has been raised that promises to be valuable, 

 the plant should be carefully lifted during rainy 

 weather and set out by itself for propagation. 



The plants may be removed from the seedling bed or 

 rows soon after the fruit is mature, or its character 

 fully determined if carefully lifted, and then given 

 plenty of water and shaded a few days after re-planting. 

 It is not at all difficult to raise new varieties, but to ob- 

 tain one worthy of propagation and dissemination is 

 quite another matter, and the chances are not more than 

 one in a thousand of obtaining a new variety from seed 

 equal to the best of the old ones now in cultivation. It 

 is well enough, however, for every person who has the 



