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III. On raising Apple Trees from Pips. In a Letter to the 

 Secretary. By the Rev. James Venables, C. M. H. S. 



Read December 1, 1829. 



Sir, 



I n the works I have met with on Horticulture, I have never found 

 a satisfactory reason, why the Pips of our best Apples should pro- 

 duce most frequently trees little better than a crab, while other 

 products of our gardens in no degree deteriorate from the parent 

 stock. It is the general effect of cultivation to improve the natural 

 qualities of trees and vegetables, but no advantages of care and 

 management, or of soil and manure, as hitherto applied, have been 

 able to secure our seedling fruit-trees from degenerating. I will 

 venture to offer a few conjectures on this anomaly in the usual 

 process of nature, which may possibly turn the attention of some 

 of the able physiologists of your Society, to the subject ; and lead 

 to results beneficial to the science we have associated to advance. 



Though fruits and vegetables of the most opposite taste and 

 flavour, will grow in the same soil, yet it is certain that among the 

 infinite varieties of soil, one might be found, if we were able to 

 make the selection, most congenial and appropriate to each par- 

 ticular class of plants, and in which each class will come to its 

 greatest perfection. Now, if the proper adaptation of soil con- 

 tributes to the improvement of fruit-trees, in the more advanced 

 periods of their growth, it must have a still more important effect 

 at the first germination of the seed. It would seem that much of 

 the peculiar flavour of fruit depends upon the leaf, and whatever 

 determines the first organization of this member of the tree, must 



