FUUIT TKEES. 53 



Van Mons does not altiibute tlie deterioration of fruit trees to 

 their multiplication by repeated ingrafting, but contends tliat nat- 

 ural and grafted trees deteriorate in the same manner and with 

 the same rapidity, in consequence merely of their age. He dis- 

 covered in an old garden of the Capuchines, the parent tree of 

 the Bergamote de la Pentacote, an old pear. All the trees 

 grafted from it are affected with canker, in slightly moist land, 

 and the fruit is small, cracks when growing in the open air, is 

 covered with black spots, which conmiunicate a bitter taste, and 

 no longer succeeds, but when trained as an espalier along a wall. 

 The parent tree was infected with all the evils found in those 

 grafted from the same variety. He took suckers from the roots 

 and scions at the same time, which he grafted on other stocks, 

 and the trees produced by both were deteriorated in the same 

 degree and manner as those which have been for a long time 

 rnultij)lied by the graft. Poiteau, the admirer and panegyrist of 

 Van j\lons, thinks, however, that this rapid deterioration of fruit 

 trees may be somewhat delayed if scions be always taken from 

 the most healthy individuals and inserted only into vigorous 

 stocks. 



Van Mons's method of raising fruit trees from the seed was 

 as follows. He left the plants in the seed bed two years; he 

 then took them up, preserved and transplanted only the most 

 vigorous, at such a distance one from the other that they could 

 thoroughly develope themselves and fructify. He planted theni 

 about ten feet apart, sufficiently near to force them to run up 

 tall and form pyramidal tops, which he states hastens their fruc- 

 tification. While waiting for his trees to produce fruit, he 

 studied their form and physiognomy, and from long continued 

 observations established the following prognostics of what they 

 may become, from their different exterior characteristics. 



1. Prognostics of a favourable augury. — A good form, a 

 smooth and slightly shining bark, a regular distribution of the 

 branches in proportion to the height of the tree ; annual shoots 

 bent, striated, a little twisted, and breaking clear without splin- 

 ters, thorns long and garnished with eyes or buds nearly their 

 whole length ; eyes or buds plum}), not divergent red or grizzled ; 



