42 FRUIT GARDEN. 
flowering and hardy blossoms are desirable characters. It 
has been observed, that even after a seedling tree has com- 
menced bearing, its fruit has a tendency to improve as the 
tree itself acquires vigor, so that, if, in the first season, 
there is any considerable promise, a great melioration may 
be expected in succeeding years. 
The slowness with which seedlings reach the bearing 
state has been the subject of complaint among horticultur- 
ists, and indeed is the principal reason why this mode of 
propagation has not been more frequently practiced. 
According to Mr. Knight, the pear requires from twelve to 
eightcen years to reach the age of puberty; the apple from 
five to twelve or thirteen years; the plum or cherry four or 
five; the vine three or four; the raspberry two .years. 
The peach he found to bear in two, three, or four years. 
The period, however, must depend greatly on the soil, situ- 
ation, and mode of culture. In the warm and highly- 
manured garden of M. Van Mons at Brussels (called 
Pepiniére de la Fidélité, 1816), seedling pear-trees pro- 
duced fruit in considerable quantities in the sixth and 
seventh summers. The great means of accelerating the 
epoch of bearing seems to be, to make the trees grow vigor- 
ously when young. Orude manures are indeed to be 
avoided ; but vegetable earth, and, above all, a liberal sup- 
ply of rotted turf, are wholesome and excellent stimulants. 
The seed-bed, and the ground on which the seedlings are 
transplanted, should be extremely well worked and com- 
minuted with the spade, and should not be too much. ex- 
posed to the parching rays of the sun and withering action 
of the wind. Great care ought to be taken to prevent the 
young plants from becoming stunted. In pruning, the 
small twigs in the interior should be removed, so as to 
relieve the tree from the bushy appearance which it is apt 
