THE PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIES OF FRUIT. 



5 



is to collect the seeds of tlie finest table fmits — those sorts whose merits 

 are everywhere acknowledged to be the highest. In proceeding thus, 

 we are all pretty well aware that the chances are generally a hundred to 

 one against our obtaining any new -v'ariety of great excellence. Before 

 we ofter any advice on rearing seedlings, let us examine briefly the prac- 

 tice and views of two distinguished horticulturists abroad, who have 

 paid more attention to this subject than any other persons whatever; 

 Dr. Yaii Mons, of Belgium, and Thos. Andrew Knight, Esq., the late 

 President of the Horticultural Society of London. 



The Van Mons Theory. 



Dr. Van Mons, Professor at Louvain, devoted the greater part of his 

 life to the amelioration of fruits. His nurseries contained, in 1823, no 

 less than two thousand seedlings of merit. His perseverance was inde- 

 fatigable, and, experimenting mainly on Pears, he succeeded in raising an 

 immense number of new varieties of high excellent;e. The Beurre Diel, 

 De Louvain, Frederic of Wurtemberg, &c., are a few of the many well- 

 known sorts which are the result of his unwearied labors. 



The Van Mons theory may be briefly stated as follows : 



All fine fruits are artificial products ; the aim of nature, in a wild 

 state, being only a healthy, vigorous state of the tree, and im-fect seeds 

 for continuing the species. It is the object of culture, therefore, to sub- 

 due or enfeeble this excess of vegetation ; to lessen the coarseness of the 

 tree ; to diminish the size of the seeds ; and to refine the quality and in- 

 crease the size of the flesh or pulp. 



There is always a tendency in our varieties of fruit-trees to return 

 by their seeds towards a wild state. 



This tendency is most strongly shown in the seeds borne by old fruit- 

 trees. And " the older the tree is of any cultivated variety of Pear," 

 says Dr. Yan Mons, "the nearer will the seedlings raised from it 

 approach a w^ild state, without however ever being able to return to that 

 state." 



On the other hand, the seeds of a young fruit-tree of a good sort, be- 

 ing itself in the state of amelioration, have the least tendency to retro- 

 grade, and are the most likely to produce improved sorts. 



Again, there is a certain limit to perfection in fruits. When this 

 point is reached, as in the finest varieties, the next generation will more 

 probably produce bad fruit, than if reared from seeds of an indifierent 

 sort in the course of amelioration. While, in other words, the seeds of 

 the oldest varieties of good fruit mostly yield inferior sorts, seeds taken 

 from recent varieties of bad fruit, and reproduced uninterruptedly for 

 several generations., will certainly produce good fruit. * 



With these premises, Dr. Yan Mons begins by gathering his seeds 

 from a young seedling tree, without paying much regard to its quality, 

 except that it must be in a state of variation y that is to say, a garden 

 variety, and not a wild sort. These he sows in a seed-bed or nursery, 

 where he leaves the seedlings until they attain sufiicient size to enable 

 him to judge of their character. He then selects those which appear 

 the most promising, plants them a few feet distant in the nursery, and 



* Experience of American growers does not bear out the supposition here 

 taken. The Seckel, one of the finest and most perfect pears, has perhaps given 

 more valuable seedlings than any other one kind. 



