482 GENERAL REVIEW. 



branch cuttings should be planted deeply say, a foot or 

 eighteen inches so as to be beyond the influence of surface 

 drought, otherwise they will not root well. Cuttings are best 

 taken off in the autumn or winter when pruning, and may be 

 buried in sand until spring, and then planted in rows under a 

 north wall or fence. New varieties are only to be obtained 

 from seed, and the seedling plants vary much not only in the 

 size and flavour of their fruits, but in hardiness and habit of 

 growth. If only a few seeds are to be sown, cut open the 

 fruits and pick out the seeds, which can at once be sown in 

 pans or boxes of rich earth, and placed in a cool frame. Where 

 flowers have been carefully crossed, due precautions having 

 been taken to prevent self-fertilisation or cross-fertilisation by 

 wind or insects, the chances of valuable new varieties are much 

 better than when seeds are gathered indiscriminately from sorts, 

 however good, which have not been so treated. Where large 

 quantities of seeds are sown for stocks, it is customary to bury 

 the fruit in autumn, so as to cause the pulp to rot this being 

 dug up in the spring, mixed with sand or dry earth, and sown 

 in rows in the nursery or seed-beds, the young plants being 

 thinned and transplanted in due course, either for fruiting or 

 as stocks for well-known kinds. In order to save time in 

 fruiting seedling plants, graft them on Quince stocks the second 

 or third year from seed. As will be seen from the following 

 extracts, seedling Apples and Pears should be kept for a year 

 or two after they first fruit, as they often improve very much 

 as the young trees develop themselves. 



M. Gilbert gives the following interesting details on seedling 

 Pears in ' Les Fruits Beiges:' "The Abbe' Hardenpont of 

 Mons was the first of the race of Belgian fruit-growers. ' In 

 the last quarter of the last century, he obtained from seed the 

 Beurre de Hardenpont, the Passe-Colmar, the Beurre' Ranee, 

 and the Delices d'Hardenpont, some of which still hold places 

 of the first rank in advanced pomology. M. Van Mons, of 

 Louvain, quickly followed, having, between 1787 and 1854, 

 raised five hundred kinds of new Pears, several of which are of 

 the highest class. M. Beront, between 1845 and 1854, pro- 

 duced within that decade no less than sixty new kinds ; in 

 1828 he produced Le Delice de Flays, which is even finer 

 than Les Delices d'Hardenpont. The Society Van Mons only 

 produced eleven new Pears during the sixteen years of its 

 existence, showing that individual perseverance is very generally 

 more successful than combined efforts. M. Gathoge, of Liege, 

 produced in 1852 Beurre' Edouard Morren. In 1828 M. 

 Magnere obtained from seed the Poire Renoz, a good and 



