48 AMERICAN POMOLOGY. 



have but a limited period of existence, be that longer or 

 shorter. Reasoning from the analogies of animal life this 

 would appear very probable, for it is well known that in- 

 dividuals of different species all have a definite period of 

 life, some quite brief, others quite extended, beyond which 

 they do not survive. But with our modern views of vege- 

 tation, though we know that all perennial plants do even- 

 tually die and molder away to the dust from whence they 

 were created, and that many trees of our own planting 

 come to an untimely end, while we yet survive to observe 

 their decay, still, we can see no reason why a tree or parts 

 of a tree taken from it, and placed under circumstances 

 favorable to its growth from time to time, may not be sem- 

 piternal. Harvey has placed this matter in a correct 

 light, by showing that the true life and history of a tree 

 is in the buds, which are annual, while the tree itself is 

 the connecting link between them and the ground. Any 

 portion of such a compound existence, grafted upon an- 

 other stock, or planted immediately in the ground itself 

 and established upon its own roots, will produce a new 

 tree like the first, being furnished with supplies of nour- 

 ishment it may grow indefinitely while retaining all the 

 qualities of the parent stock if that be healthy and vig-, 

 orous so will this indeed new life and vigor often seem to 

 be imparted by a congenial thrifty stock, and a fertile soil, 

 so that there does not appear to be any reason why the 

 variety should ever run out and disappear. 



The distinguished Thomas Andrew Knight, President 

 of the London Horticultural Society, was one of the lead- 

 ing advocates of the theory that varieties would neces- 

 sarily run out and disappear as it were by exhaustion. 



