SSi 



ADAPTATION OF STOCKS TO SOIL. 



be a few healthy trees in this country growing upon Almond 

 stocks, it is certain that the greater part of those which have 

 been planted have failed ; while, in the warm soil of France 

 and Italy, it is the stock upon which the old trees have, . in 

 almost all cases, been budded. 



In determining upon what kind of stock a given fruit-tree 

 should be grafted, it is important to be aware that certain 

 species prefer particular soils and dislike others, for reasons 

 which are not susceptible of explanation. In the case of the 

 common stocks employed for the propagation of the Apple, 

 Pear, Peach, and Cherry, it was found by Mr. Dubreuil, an 

 intelhgent gardener at Rouen, that in the chalky gardens about 

 that city neither the Plum nor the wild Cherry would succeed 

 for stone fruit, nor the Douein or Quince stock for Pears and 

 Apples : but that the Crab suited the Apple, the vtdld Pear the 

 cultivated Pear, the Almond the Peach, and the Mahaleb the 

 Cherry. I formerly witnessed the result of those experiments 

 while in progress, and I well remember the sickly state of his 

 Peaches and Cherries grafted on Pluni and Cherry stocks in 

 the calcareous borders of the rampart gardens of Eouen, and 

 the healthiness of the same fruit-trees in the same garden 

 when worked upon the Almond and the Mahaleb, while the 

 latter were unhealthy in their turn in the borders composed 

 artificially of loam. The result of this experiment has been 

 mentioned in the Hort. Trans., iv. 566, and is as follows : — 



Mr. Brown, of Merevale, relates the case of a Grosse Mignonne Peach 

 which for ten years bore fruit, though rarely in abundance ; at last a 

 crop of ten dozen fruit having set and nearly ripened, it suddenly died, 

 the stock being one mass of gum and canker. It was either a Peach or 

 Nectarine stock, as was ascertained by a sucker which sprang up from 

 a surface root. 



That IB, with an admixture of sand and decayed vegetable matter. 



