Remarks on Rogers's " Fruit Cultivator." 183 



" The Golden pippin being one of our most useful and esteemed hardy 

 fruits, the author trusts he will be forgiven for entering more at large into its 

 history and management than he has thought necessary in the preceding 

 notices of other inferior kinds of apples, especially as there has been, for 

 several years past, an idea prevalent, that this country was about to lose this 

 fine fruit for ever. In Mr. Knight's Ty-eatke on Orchard Fruit, the doctrine 

 was first broached, that all our varieties and subvarieties of fruits have but a 

 temporary existence. They are raised from seed, flourish for an uncertain 

 number of j^ears, and, after arriving at their maximum of health and fertility, 

 gradually sink to decay, and at length disappear. Taking this idea as a rule, 

 the golden pippin was judged to be in this last stage of existence; and it was 

 predicted, that not only were the old full-grown trees to disappear, but all the 

 young ones, lately worked from them, would perish also. It must be ad- 

 mitted, that a great majority of the old Golden pippin trees in Herefordshire, 

 and in other parts of the kingdom, were, about the time Mr. Kqight wrote his 

 treatise, in an apparent state of decay; and, moreovei", that young trees of 

 the same sort could but with difficulty be made to grow and bear so freely as 

 they had previously done. These failures, however, were accounted for in 

 another way than that propounded by Mr, Knight. It was observed, that the 

 old trees, having probably all been planted about the same time, and having 

 arrived at their natural period of healthy existence, were, like all other trees, 

 falling to decay from sheer old age ; and that the contemporaneous weakness 

 and debility of the young lately planted trees were caused by a careless choice 

 of grafts, by working them on improper stocks, and planting them in old worn- 

 out soil, instead of in fresh, well-ti"enched, light, loamy situations. This latter 

 opinion was the more feasible, because there were many middle-aged trees in 

 different parts of the kingdom, which were in full vigour and bearing ; and 

 though young plants pitted in old gardens and orchards were unthrifty, such 

 as were properly planted in newly broken-up ground, provided they were 

 worked on the best crab stocks, succeeded as well as ever. 



" This being the opinion of the author respecting the failure of the old 

 Golden pippin, and other old sorts of apples, he gave the subject his best con- 

 sideration, and set about proving how far his own conjectures were well or ill 

 founded; and, after the experience of forty years, he has come to the follow- 

 ing conclusion ; viz., that if crab stocks be raised from the most healthy wild 

 trees, properly treated, and planted out in the nursery, and worked with the 

 most healthy moderate-sized scions, cut from the top of sound healthy trees, 

 and, when fit for final transplantation, be placed on well-trenched light fresh 

 loam, having a dry bottom of rock or chalk, the trees will assuredly prosper 

 without fear of disappointment. On the other hand, if the grafts be taken 

 indiscriminately from any tree, or from any part of a tree, and placed either 

 on free or paradise stocks, the young trees so raised will, nine times out of 

 twelve, be in some respect or other defective ; and particularly if they be not 

 afterwards planted in their favourite soil, where their wood would not be 

 sufficiently ripened. 



" The Golden pippin requires a dry and moderately warm climate. The 

 best fruit are produced in Normandy on the Continent, in Sussex in England, 

 and on walls in Scotland. The south of France is too warm, and the richer 

 counties of England and Ireland are too moist. This apple is supposed to 

 have been first raised at Parham Park, on the South Downs of Sussex. 



" It has been noticed of late years, that neither the Golden pippin nor 

 Nonpareil keep so well as formerly. The author well remembers, that, sixty 

 years ago, both these kinds of apples were plentiful in May ; but it is not so 

 at present. This is attributable to two causes ; our summers lately being 

 more moist, and perhaps too many free and paradise stocks used in the nur- 

 series. It has been deemed a good practice to raise the Golden pippin from 

 cuttings or layers. This plan is quite practicable ; and some practitioners 

 have been very successful in raising plants from cuttings, intend sd for potting. 



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