124 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



factors in the general characteristics of the future tree grown 

 from such seed, we can not tell, but the evidence adduced is 

 unanswerable, that quality and brighter color of the skin are 

 the result of such conditions, while heredity, cross-fertiliza- 

 tion and other influences doubtless determine the size, shape 

 and season of ripening. 



For instance, we have seen the outcome of chance seed 

 on virgin soil in the Brady apricot, the Gonzalez plum and 

 the Baldwin apple, as restored by Mr. Green to its original 

 perfection ; but suppose those three trees had originated on 

 deeply dug garden soil and been cultivated continuously 

 from year to year, would they have turned out to be the 

 same fruits ? Plainly not, else the plum and apple would 

 never have changed their bright scarlet and golden color to 

 a deep, dull red, or largely lost their good eating qualities 

 under cultivation now. By all means, let every fruit-grower 

 try these interesting and important experiments which re- 

 quire no scientific skill or knowledge of the principles of tree- 

 breeding, planting seed of selected fruits on firm soil and 

 letting the trees alone, as well as putting even a single one 

 of our finest fruits on their own roots, as suggested in the 

 chapter on " Scion and Stock" and planting the seed. For 

 their encouragement, I will close this chapter with a striking 

 instance of success here in Lampasas. A lady friend, during 

 a visit to her old home in Georgia six years ago, ate a large 

 white clingstone peach known there as the "White Eng- 

 lish," fine for preserving. Wishing a tree for that purpose 

 and thinking it would reproduce itself, she saved the seed, 

 and on her return planted it in her back yard on virgin soil, 

 digging a small hole with a garden trowel. It came up and 

 has borne fine crops every year since it began to fruit, of 

 extra large yellow freestone peaches, just like Elberta except 

 longer in shape and ripening just after it. Here is what Mr. 

 Sam Dixon, our superintendent at the World's Fair, said of 

 it: "The 'Cauthen' peach attracted the admiration of the 

 Exposition officials and was photographed whole and in sec- 

 tions." The tree has never been cultivated, being in a chicken 

 yard, nor ever pruned until this year, when the lower branches 



