324 ON PROLONGING THE DURATION OF VARIETIES OF FRUITS. 



qualities of their produce could be known, would show more disposition 

 to grow than to produce fruit, and I had previously satisfied myself that 

 the blossoms of old and debilitated varieties of fruits were extremely 

 impatient of cold and unfavourable weather ; and I was thence led to 

 infer that each variety possessed its greatest value in its middle age. 

 But subsequent experiment and observation have compelled me to draw 

 a different conclusion ; and I believe that in vegetable, as in animal life, 

 the most prolific period is that which immediately succeeds the age of 

 puberty. 



I have made a good many experiments with a view of ascertaining this 

 point, of which the following are amongst the most satisfactory. I took 

 in the summer of 1828 some buds from the extremities of the leading 

 branches of seedling pear-trees, which, being nearly twenty years old, 

 had in the preceding autumn produced their first fruit. The buds 

 were in July inserted in stocks, which had sprung from seeds in the 

 preceding spring, and were then only four months old. The trees are 

 consequently three years old now, dating from the period when they 

 sprang from the ground ; and many of them, though they have not been 

 transplanted or subjected to any peculiar mode of treatment, have 

 produced blossoms, some of them very abundantly and vigorously, in the 

 present spring. I never previously saw, and I do not think that any 

 other person has seen, in this climate fruit produced by pear-trees at so 

 early an age. I had previously made the same experiment with apple- 

 trees with the same results. 



Some branches of a plum-tree which had not attained the age of 

 puberty were employed as layers, and these, as I expected they would, 

 very freely emitted roots ; but, very contrary to my expectations, I found 

 that the young shoots which these layers had produced afforded in the 

 following spring much blossom. The variety of plum which was the 

 subject of this experiment is, I have reason to believe, exceedingly 

 productive of blossom ; but I doubt much whether such blossoms would 

 have appeared if the variety had been a century old. The only inference, 

 however, which I wish to draw from the foregoing premises is, that grafts 

 or buds taken from the bearing branches of very young seedling trees 

 afford trees capable of bearing freely at a very early age; as it would be 

 waste of time to offer facts or arguments in proof that such trees would 

 continue to grow with health and vigour. 



Any information which the gardener might derive from knowledge of 

 the preceding facts would be of very little value if every part of seedling 

 trees were in the same degree affected by age ; but it is not so ; and the 



