34 FRUIT GARDEN. 



resume their original constitution. In 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 

 usually employed for feeding hogs. Notwithstanding 

 this embarrassing circumstance, there are some conside- 

 rations 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 apples of the 

 seventeenth century have become extinct, and others 

 are fast verging into decrepitude ; and hence the con- 

 clusion has been drawn, that all our present fruits, as 

 they are artificial in their constitution, are also limited 

 in their duration. Each variety springing from an in- 

 dividual at first, however extended by grafting or bud- 

 ding, partakes of the qualities of the individual ; and 

 where the original is old, there is inherent in the deriva- 

 tives the tendency to decay incident to old age. It is 

 assumed that all the individual trees of any given 

 variety, such as the Golden Pippin, or the Gray Lead- 

 ington, are in a lax sense equivalent to one individual. 

 By careful management, the health and life of this com- 

 posite individual may be prolonged ; and grafts inserted 

 into vigorous stocks, and nursed in favorable situa- 

 tions, 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 



