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On raising Apple Trees from Pips, 



have considerable influence on its produce. In the growth of 

 grain, the most important product of the earth, nature appears to 

 have provided with particular care that the plant in striking its 

 first roots, and developing its first leaves, shall meet with that ap- 

 propriate nutriment which probably fixes and determines its future 

 habits and quality. In malting it has been observed, that as soon 

 as the barley begins to germinate, the farina of the grain is con- 

 verted into a substance approaching very nearly to sugar, and this 

 saccharine material affords the first nourishment to the growing 

 plant, and supports it till the radicles spread, and are enabled to 

 draw a supply of aliment from the earth. In the pea and the bean, 

 nature has provided a still ampler supply of saccharine food for 

 the embryo plant, nor is it left to the watery juices of the soil, till 

 the first leaves are developed and fitted to derive a supply of oxy- 

 gen from the atmosphere. The Apple Pip contains the germ of a 

 plant of larger growth, intended to supply man with a rich and 

 highly flavoured fruit. Yet how little does it contain of this sac- 

 charine pabulum for the future tree. If we observe the course of 

 nature in her operations, we may easily discover the source from 

 which this deficiency is to be supplied. It was evidently intended, 

 that the apple itself, decaying on the ground, and enriching the 

 soil around the pips with its saccharine juices, should supply the 

 young tree with its earliest nutriment. When, therefore, we sepa- 

 rate the Pips from the Apple, for the purpose of sowing, we de- 

 prive the seedling of a material part of its appropriate nourishment, 

 and raise a tree in no way resembling the qualities of its parent. 



We have no account of the manner in which the old Golden 

 Pippin, the Nonpareil, and the best Apples of former times were 

 raised. In the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries there were, no doubt, 

 excellent practical gardeners, though few perhaps whom we should 

 consider as scientific horticulturists : and possibly the best fruits of 

 those days may have been a selection from numbers raised, of an 



