186 FIELD, FOREST AND FARM 



cible tendency to revert to the wild state causes the 

 fruit to lose, little by little, from one generation 

 to another, the improvement it had acquired through 

 cultivation. Thus the pear, through repeated plant- 

 ings of the seed, would become increasingly sour, 

 small, and hard, until it had at last returned to the 

 sorry state of the wild pear growing on the edge of 

 the woods. But this defect attending growth from 

 the seed is redeemed by one very desirable quality: 

 the tree thus grown regains more or less the robust- 

 ness of its wild type ; it is incomparably more vigor- 

 ous, healthier, longer-lived, than the artificially per- 

 fected tree whose strength is compromised by the 

 very excess of its fructification. One has vigor, the 

 other fine fruit. The two attributes cannot go to- 

 gether; if one increases, the other decreases. Well 

 then, these robust specimens reared from the seed 

 are just what we require for grafting. Used as 

 stocks, they supply the quality inherent in them, 

 namely, vigor ; and the cutting engrafted upon them 

 furnishes the other quality, excellence of fruit. 



"Accordingly it is the practice to plant the pips 

 of pears and apples, and the stones of apricots and 

 peaches ; and on the trees thus obtained to graft cut- 

 tings from pear, apple, apricot, and peach trees that 

 bear fruit of recognized superiority. In this way 

 there are united in the same tree the root and trunk 

 of the robust and almost wild kind with the leaves 

 and blossoms of the weak but artificially improved 

 kind. Every variety of pear tree is by nature fitted 

 to receive a pear graft, every variety of peach tree 



