TRAINING. 25> 



and by so doing inducing moderate growth and fruit- 

 fulness. 



It has been said of orchard fruit, particularly the 

 apple, that they have only a temporary period of 

 health and fruitfulness, and that after the meridian 

 of their vigour and fertility, they become constitu- 

 tionally so feeble, that they cannot be perpetuated by 

 any method of propagation without conveying the 

 decrepitude of the old to the young trees. 



As all kinds, forest as well as fruit-trees, die of old 

 age, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude, that any 

 one of the latter, which are but varieties, and have 

 endured the operation of grafting, pruning, and other 

 manipulations, should be necessarily shorter lived 

 than a natural tree of the forest ; and also that their 

 decay will commence sooner than such as rise from 

 seed. 



That grafts and buds carry along with them certain 

 characteristics of the parent tree has been already 

 shown : it is a fact of which there can be no doubt ; 

 and if such old apple trees produce no perfectly sound 

 young shoots, it cannot be expected that healthy 

 young trees can be reared from them. But, on the 

 other hand, if the young shoots at the top of the 

 old tree be perfectly sound, and free from visible 

 decay, they are as well fitted to be the basis of a new 

 tree as any other shoot produced at any former period 

 of the parent's life. 



It must be admitted, however, that during these 

 last thirty or forty years, there has been real difficulty 



