20 On the proper Stock for the Moor Park Apricot. 



more dwarfish and governable, and therefore more produc- 

 tive, in soils and situations where exuberance of growth and 

 health might prove injurious, I suspect that the Peach-tree 

 might be budded upon its own stock, in many cases, with 

 considerable advantage. The growth of the Peach-tree is so 

 rapid, under these circumstances, that, with the aid of arti- 

 ficial heat, the stock which is raised from a seed in the spring, 

 may be budded and headed down in the same season, and 

 afford a tree large enough to bear many Peaches in the suc- 

 ceeding year ; and for forcing-houses, where exuberance of 

 growth may be effectually checked by a succession of heavy 

 crops of fruit, I should prefer such trees to any others. The 

 fruit they afford in the first season, I have, however, found to 

 be inferior in flavour to that which older trees produce. 



I am engaged in some experiments with the view of ascer- 

 taining the advantages or disadvantages of stocks of different 

 species, in the culture of the Peach and Nectarine, and the 

 Apricot, and I should have waited the result of those experi- 

 ments, but that I felt anxious to state to the Horticultural 

 Society the following circumstance respecting the Moor Park 

 Apricot. This tree, in my garden, as in many others, be- 

 comes, in a very few years, diseased and debilitated, and 

 generally exhibits, in spaces near the head of its stock, life- 

 less alburnum, beneath a rough and scabrous bark. Sixteen 

 or seventeen years ago, a single plant of this variety was 

 obtained by grafting upon an Apricot stock ; and the bark 

 of this tree still retains a smooth and polished surface ; and 

 the whole tree presents a degree of health and vigour so 

 perfectly different to any other tree of the same kind in my 



