Propagation of Fruit Trees, Vines, fyc. 291 



If I had a vine producing high flavored melons, I should adopt a 

 similar plan. I would select fine specimens and leave them to per- 

 ish, preserving the seeds in several ways, to ascertain the best, and 

 some I might allow to remain all winter in their native situation, not 

 knowing how far the dead covering might afford protection against 

 snow, cold, rain and sun. I should like to see such experiments tried, 

 and the results given in this Journal for general information. 



There may be advantages in transplanting, as soils have frequently 

 an influence on flowers and probably may have also on fruits, but ac- 

 cording to my theory it would not be likely to change the identity 

 of the fruit, although it might lessen or improve its quality. This 

 is, however, matter for experiment. 



While on this subject, allow me a few words on the cultivation of 

 the grape, which is widely different from the course pursued by na- 

 ture, who trains up her vines to the top of trees, and there forms an 

 umbrella-shaped canopy of leaves, curiously arranged to turn off the 

 rains and screen from the scorching sun of our climate the rich clus- 

 ters which hang under its shade. The foreign grape introduced into 

 America is certainly a more palatable one than our wild fruit, but 

 when the varieties in our woods are better known, and the kind se- 

 lected are trained on insulated trees, beyond the influence of the 

 damp and gloomy forest, who can tell the change that may not take 

 place in it for the better. Every body must remark, that the finest 

 and most numerous branches of our cultivated grapes hang from the 

 leaf-covered roof of the trellis in our garden alleys. In the northern 

 climates of Europe, where the power of the sun is weak, the plan 

 there adopted, and which we appear to have borrowed, may answer; 

 but all travellers speak of the festoons of vines loaded with fmit, 

 hanging from tree to tree over the plains of Tuscany and Naples. 



Should these observations be deemed worthy of a place in your 

 Journal, and lead to any satisfactory experiments, which should give 

 us finer fruit than we now obtain by the ordinary mode of planting, 

 my object will be answered. Pomona. 



