5 



other vegetable physiologists, in thinking that no kind 

 of apple now cultivated appears to have existed more 

 than two hundred years ; and this term does not at 

 all exceed the duration of a healthy tree, or of an 

 orchard when grafted on crab-stocks, and planted in 

 a strong tenacious soil. From the description Par- 

 kinson, who wrote in 1629, has given of the apples 

 cultivated in his time, it is evident that those now 

 known by the same names are different, and probably 

 new varieties ; and though many of those mentioned 

 by Evelyn, who wi^ote between thirty and forty years 

 later, still remain, they appear no longer to deserve 

 the attention of the planter. The Moil, and its suc- 

 cessful rival the Redstreak, with the Musts and Gol- 

 den Pippin, are in the last stage of decay, and the 

 Stire and Foxwhelp are hastening rapidly after them. 

 {Knight on the Apple, 6.) 



Except by some overwhelming convulsion — such as 

 the Deluge — we believe that no species ever becomes 

 extinct, but it is quite otherwise wdth varieties and 

 hybrids. These, like all other devices of man, have 

 their limited period of existence, beyond which by no 

 ingenuity can it be protracted. Some authorities 

 assert that grafting is a mode of thus protracting 

 vegetable life, but from these we totally differ. It is 

 happily quite true that grafting upon a young and 

 vigorous stock imparts to the scion a supply of sap of 

 which the parent stem is incapable, yet this failure is 



