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LXI. Observations on the Qualities of newly raised Fruits, 

 exemplified in Plums. In a Letter to the Secretary. By 

 Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. F. R. S. $c. $c. Pre- 

 sident. 



Read September 19, 1826. 

 My Dear Sir, 

 Every person, who has been long and extensively engaged 

 in raising new varieties of fruits from the seeds of highly 

 improved kinds, must have observed the prevalent defect of 

 the seedling fruits, to be the want of a sufficient quantity of 

 saccharine matter. The pulp is often of very good quality, 

 and the juice is frequently abundant, but it is generally found 

 to be, in a large majority of cases, insipid and watery. But 

 when I have obtained new varieties of the same species, by 

 introducing the Pollen of a highly improved variety into the 

 blossoms of one of a much less cultivated habit, I have gene- 

 rally obtained fruit which contained much saccharine matter, 

 usually, though not always, combined with excess of acid. 

 This has occurred so extensively in my experience, that I 

 have latterly been led to doubt, whether acid species of fruits 

 do not, when cultivated through successive seedling genera- 

 tions, first gradually become saccharine, and afterwards in- 

 sipid. Under these impressions I have lately made some 

 efforts to raise plants from seeds of wild and acid varieties 

 of the Plum, employing the pollen of highly improved varie- 

 ties of that species of Fruit. I have sent you a few speci- 

 mens (some of them rather as objects of curiosity, in their 



