DURATION OF VARIETIES OF FRUIT-TREES. 11 



favored situations in the country around, they (the old sorts) have 

 become either so uncertain in their bearing — so barren — so unproductive 

 — or so miserably blighted — so mortally diseased — that they are no 

 longer to be trusted ; they are no longer what they once were with us, 

 and what many of them are still described to be by most foreign 

 writers." 



Mr. Kenrick accordingly arranges in separate classes the Old and 

 New Pears ; and while he praises the latter, he can hardly find epithets 

 sufficiently severe to bestow on the former poor unfortunates. Of the 

 Doyenne he says : " This most eminent of all Pears has now become an 

 outcast, intolerable even to sight ; " of the Brown Beurre, " once the 

 best of all Pears — now become an outcast." The St. Germain "has 

 long since become an abandoned variety," &c, &c. 



Many persons have, therefore, supposing that these delicious varieties 

 had really and quietly given up the ghost, made no more inquiries after 

 them, and only ordered from the nurseries the new varieties. And this 

 not always, as they have confessed to us, without some lingering feeling 

 of regret at thus abandoning old and tried friends for new-comers — 

 which, it must be added, not unfrequently failed to equal the good quali- 

 ties of their predecessors. 



But, while this doctrine of Knight's has found ready supporters, we 

 are bound to add that it has also met with sturdy opposition. At the 

 head of the opposite party we may rank the most distinguished vege- 

 table physiologist of the age, Professor De Candolle, of Geneva. Varie- 

 ties, says De Candolle, will endure and remain permanent so long as 

 man chooses to take care of them, as is evident from the continued 

 existence to this day of sorts, the most ancient of those which have 

 been described in books. By negligence, or through successive bad sea- 

 sons, they may become diseased, but careful culture will restore them, 

 and retain them, to all appearance, forever. 



Our own opinion coincides, in the main, with that of De Candolle. 

 While we admit that, in the common mode of propagation, varieties are 

 constantly liable to decay or become comparatively worthless, we believe 

 that this is owing not to natural limits set upon the duration of a vari- 

 ety ; that it does not depend on the longevity of the parent tree ; but 

 upon the care with which the sort is propagated, and the nature of the 

 climate or soil where the tree is grown. 



It is a well-established fact, that a seedling tree, if allowed to grow 

 on its own root, is always much longer lived, and often more vigorous 

 than the same variety when grafted upon another stock ; and experi- 

 ence has also proved that in proportion to the likeness or close relation 

 between the stock and the graft is the long life of the grafted tree. 

 Thus a variety of pear grafted on a healthy pear seedling lasts almost as 

 long as upon its own roots. Upon a thorn stock it does not endure so 

 long. Upon a mountain ash or quince stock still less ; until the aver- 

 age life of the pear-tree when grafted on the quince is reduced to one- 

 third of its ordinary duration on the pear stock. This is well known to 

 every practical gardener, and it arises from the want of affinity between 

 the quince stock and the pear graft. The latter is rendered dwarf in its 

 habits, bears very early, and perishes equally soon. 



Next to this, the apparent decay of a variety is often caused by graft- 

 ing upon unhealthy stocks. For although grafts of very vigorous habit 

 have frequently the power of renovating in some measure, or for a time, 



