By Mr. Arthur Biggs. 



65 



relative to the selection of their grafts and buds, not only in 

 the Apple Tree, but in every sort of Fruit Tree, about which 

 they are in general too careless. 



I must now observe, that the Apple Tree will grow rea- 

 dily by cuttings, and that trees raised in this way, from 

 healthy one-year old branches, with blossom buds upon them, 

 will continue to go on bearing the very finest possible 

 fruit, in a small compass, for many years. Such trees are 

 peculiarly proper for forcing, by way of curiosity or luxury, 

 and I believe that they are less liable to canker than when 

 raised by grafting, though I am unable to assign any reason 

 for it. I have more than once experienced this in the 

 Golden Pippin, cuttings of which have remained seven years 

 in perfect health, when grafts taken not only from the same 

 tree, but from the very branch, part of which was divided 

 into cuttings, cankered in two or three years. Accident, 

 which brings to light so many useful things, first taught me 

 this practice ; some cuttings that I had stuck into the ground 

 for marks of annual flowers, having all made roots. The soil 

 was loamy, and the summer proved so wet and cold, that 

 many bunches of Grapes in a large greenhouse, which I could 

 not prevail upon the gentleman I then served to be at the 

 expense of thinning with scissars, rotted when green. 



The soil at Twickenham is light, and inclined to sand rather 

 than loam, in which the Apple Tree will ripen its fruit earlier 

 and more completely than in a stifFer soil, but it will not last 

 so long. Young seedling plants will also produce their blos- 

 soms and fruits in a shorter period in such soil. The trees 

 being originally placed too near each other, I have trans- 

 planted several into other quarters with very great success, 



