Duration and Vigor of Seedling Fruits. 21 



much of the result should be attributed to accident, or to the 

 circumstances of the particular trial ; and it would require a 

 number of such experiments, conducted and repeated under 

 every variety of circumstances, before any thing like cer- 

 tainty could be claimed for any " general rule " to be deduced 

 from them. 



But is there not an easier way of arriving at the truth 

 upon this subject 7 If what is advanced by Van Mons be 

 true of fruit trees, ought it not to be also true of the whole 

 vegetable kingdom 7 Why should it be confined to fruit trees 

 alone? Why should it not embrace forest trees — the oak, 

 the elm, the poplar? Why not shrubs — the hawthorn, the 

 broom, the snowball ? Why not plants — the lily of the val- 

 ley, the foxglove, the cardinal flower 1 Why not wheat, 

 rye, the grasses ? Why not peas, beans, all culinary vege- 

 tables ? 



We may test this matter then by analogy. And, from the 

 vegetable kingdom, we may select the annuals from' which 

 to draw our lessons. Now, wheat, rye, the grasses, peas, 

 beans, all culinary vegetables, " reproduced continuously 

 from seed," do not become "more feeble and short-lived the 

 more frequently" they are so "reproduced." If they did, 

 the time would come when the world would be without 

 them. It would have been without them long ago. and they 

 would now be utterly extinct. Universal experience does 

 not lead any one to believe that such can ever be the case. 

 New varieties of them all are, indeed, occasionally produced ; 

 but, in every instance, they remain true, each to the common 

 characteristics of its genus. 



I apprehend, that neither the one nor the other of the 

 above extracts is true to the letter ; but that seedling fruit 

 trees, no matter how frequently reproduced, are, like e\''ery 

 thing else in the vegetable kingdom when produced from 

 seed, " more feeble and short-lived," or " of greater produc- 

 tiveness and longevity," or neither — that is, of equal vigor, 

 "productiveness and longevity " with the parent kind — as 

 the individual case may be; and that there is no other " gen- 

 eral rule " upon the subject. 



Coshocton, Dec. 2d, 1845. 



