By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. 33 



readily to acquire habits of maturity in warm climates ; for 

 it is in the power of the cultivator to commit his seeds to the 

 earth at any season ; and the progress of the plants towards 

 maturity will be most rapid, where the climate and soil are 

 most warm. Thus, the Barley grown on sandy soils, in the 

 warmest parts of England, is always found by the Scotch 

 farmer, when introduced into his country, to ripen on his 

 cold hills earlier than his crops of the same kind do, when 

 he uses the seeds of plants, which have passed through seve- 

 ral successive generations in his colder climate ; and in my 

 own experience, I have found that the crops of Wheat on 

 some very high and cold ground, which I cultivate, ripen 

 much earlier when I obtain my seed-corn from a very warm 

 district and gravelly soil, which lies a few miles distant, than 

 when I employ the seeds of the vicinity. 



The value, to the gardener, of an early crop, has attracted 

 his attention to the propagation and culture of the earliest 

 varieties of many species of our esculent plants ; but in the 

 improvement of these he is more often indebted to accident " 

 than to any plan of systematic culture ; and contents himself 

 with merely selecting and propagating from the plant of the 

 earliest habits, which accident throws in his way; without 

 inquiring from what causes those habits have arisen : and few 

 efforts have been made to bring into existence better varieties 

 of those fruits which arc not generally propagated from seeds, 

 and which, when so propagated, of necessity exercise, during 

 many years, the patience of the cultivator, before he can 

 hope to see the fruits of his labour. 



The attempts which 1 have made to produce early varie- 

 ties of fruit are, I believe, all that have yet been made ; and 



vol. i. F 



