2 PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIES. 



midst of thorns and sloes, tliat man the gardener arises and 

 forces nature to yield to his art. 



These improved sorts of fruit which man every where causes 

 to share his civilization, bear, almost equally with himselt^ the 

 impress of an existence removed from the natural state. When 

 reared from seeds they always show a tendency to return to a 

 wilder form, and it seems only chance when a new seedling is 

 equal to, or surpasses its parent. Removed from their natui'al 

 form, these artificially created sorts are also much more liable to 

 diseases and to decay. From these facts arises the fruit-garden, 

 with its various processes of grafting, budding and other means 

 of continuing the sort ; with also its sheltered aspects, warm bor- 

 ders, deeper soils, and all its various refinements of art and culture. 



In the whole range of cares and pleasures belonging to the 

 garden, there is nothing more truly interesting than the produc- 

 tion of new varieties of fruit. It is not, indeed, by sowing the 

 seeds that the lover of good fruit usually undertakes to stock his 

 garden and orchard with fine fruit trees. Raising new varieties 

 is always a slow, and, as generally understood, a most uncertain 

 mode of bringing about this result. The novice plants and care- 

 fully watches his hundred seedling pippins, to find at last, per- 

 haps, ninety-nine worthless or indifterent apples. It appears to 

 him a lottery, in which there are too many blanks to the prizes. 

 He, therefore, wisely resorts to the more certain mode of 

 grafting from well known and esteemed sorts. 



Notwithstanding this; every year, under the influences of gar- 

 den culture, and often without our design, we find our fruit 

 trees reproducing themselves ; and occasionally, there springs 

 up a new and delicious sort, whose merits tempt us to fresh trials 

 after perfection. 



To a man who is curious in fruit, the pomologist who views 

 with a more than common eye, the crimson cheek of a peach, the 

 delicate bloom of a plum, or understands the epithets, rich, melt- 

 ing, buttery, as applied to a pear, nothing in the circle of culture 

 can give more lively and unmixed pleasure, than thus to pro- 

 duce and to create — for it is a sort of creation — an entirely new 

 sort, which he believes will prove handsomer and better than any 

 thing that has gone before. And still more, as varieties which 

 originate in a certain soil and climate, are found best adapted to 

 that locality, the production of new sorts of fruit, of high merit, 

 may be looked on as a most valuable, as well as interesting 

 result. 



Besides this, all the fine new fruits, which, of late, figure so 

 conspicuously in the catalogues of the nurseries and fruit gar- 

 dens, have not been originated at random and by chance efi'orts. 

 Some of the most distinguished pomologists have devoted years 

 to the subject of the improvement of fruit trees by seeds, and 

 have attained if not certain results, at least some general 



