8 PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIES. 



pears, peaches, and plums. According to Dr. Van Mons, had 

 this process been continued iininternqytcdli/j from one generation 

 to the next, a much shorter time would have been necessary for 

 the production of first rate varieties. 



To show how the practice of chance sowing works in the 

 other hemisphere, it is stated by one of the most celebrated of 

 the old writers on fruits, Duhamel of France, that he had been 

 in the habit of planting seeds of the finest table pears for fifty 

 years without ever having produced a good variety. These 

 seeds were from trees of old varieties of fruit. 



The American gardener will easily perceive, from what we 

 have stated, a great advantage placed in his hands at the present 

 time for the amelioration of fruits by this system. He will 

 see that, as most of our American varieties of fruit are the re- 

 sult of repeated sowings, more or less constantly repeated, he 

 has before him almost every day a part of the ameliorating pro- 

 cess in progress ; to which Dr. Van Mons, beginning de novo, 

 was obliged to devote his whole life. Nearly all that it is ne- 

 cessary for him to do in attempting to raise a new variety of ex- 

 cellence by this simple mode, is to gather his seeds (before they 

 are fully ripe,) from a seedling sort of promising quality, though 

 not yet arrived at perfection. The seedling must be quite 

 young — must be on its own root (not grafted ;) and it must be a 

 healthy tree, in order to secure a healthy generation of seed- 

 lings. Our own experience leads us to believe that he will 

 scarcely have to go beyond one or two generations to obtain fine 

 fruit. These remarks apply to most of our table fruits common- 

 ly cultivated. On the other hand, our native grapes, the Isabella, 

 Catawba, &c., which are scarcely removed from the wild state, 

 must by this ameliorating process be carried through several 

 successive generations before we arrive at varieties equalling 

 the finest foreign grapes ; a result, which, judging from what 

 we see in progress, we have every reason speedily to hope for. 



In order to be most successful in raising new varieties by suc- 

 cessive reproduction, let us bear in mind that we must avoid — 

 1st, the seeds of old fruit trees ; 2d, those of grafted fruit trees ; 

 and 3d, that we have the best grounds for good results when we 

 gather our seeds from a young seedling tree, which is itself ra- 

 ther a perfecting than a perfect fruit. 



It is not to be denied that, in the face of Dr. Van Mons' theory, 

 in this country, new varieties of rare excellence are sometimes 

 obtained at once by planting the seeds of old grafted varieties; 

 thus the Lawrence's Favourite, and the Columbia plums, were 

 raised from seeds of the Green Gage, one of the oldest European 

 varieties. 



Such arc the means of originating new fruits by the Belgian 

 mode. Let us now examine another more direct, more interest- 

 ing, and more scientific process — cros.s-breediug; a mode almost 



