44 Additional Notes. 



that is they will require as much time, as those new shoots from the 

 lopped trunk would require, before they produce fruit. It should 

 thence be inquired, when grafted fruit trees are purchased, whether 

 the scions were taken from bearing branches, or from the young 

 shoots of a lopped trunk; as the latter, I believe, are generally sold, 

 as they appear stronger plants. This greater similitude of the pro- 

 geny to the parent in solitary reproduction must certainly make them 

 more liable to hereditary diseases, if such have been acquired by the 

 parent from unfriendly climate or bad nourishment, or accidental 

 injury. 



la respect to the sexual progeny of vegetables it has long been 

 thought, that a change of seed or of situation is in process of time ne- 

 cessary to prevent their degeneracy; but it is now believed, that it is 

 only changing for seed of a superior quality, that will better the 

 product. At the same time it may be probably useful occasionally to 

 intermix seeds from different situations together; as the anther-dust 

 is liable to pass from one plant to another in its vicinity; and by 

 these means the new seeds or plants may be amended, like the mar- 

 riages of animals into different families. 



As the sexual progeny of vegetables are thus less liable to heredi- 

 tary diseases than the solitary progenies; so it is reasonable to con- 

 clude, that the sexual progenies of animals may be less liable to here- 

 ditary diseases, if the marriages are into different families, than if into 

 the same family ; this has long been supposed to be true, by those 

 who breed animals for sale; since if the male and female be of different 

 temperaments, as these are extremes of the animal system, they may 

 counteract each other; and certainly where both parents are of fami- 

 lies, which are afflicted with the same hereditary disease, it is more 

 likely to descend to their posterity. 



The hereditary diseases of this country have many of them been 

 the consequence of drinking much fermented or spirituous liquor; as 

 the gout always, most kinds of dropsy, and, I believe, epilepsy, and 

 insanity. But another material, which is liable to produce diseases in 

 its immoderate use, I believe to be common salt; the sea-scurvy is 

 evidently caused by it in long voyages ; and I suspect the scrofula, * 

 and consumption, to arise in the young progeny from the debility of 



