308 



HARDY FRUIT GARDEN. 



such trees, present a totally different character, 

 and a very slow and unhealthy growth. Although 

 Mr Downing' s remarks are more of a practical 

 nature than of a physiological one, they bear the 

 stamp of keen observation. Physiologists may, 

 nevertheless, differ from him in certain deduc- 

 tions he has drawn. 



Knight's theory does not, however, appear to 

 be new, for we find Mortimer, author of some 

 tracts on religious education, and also on hus- 

 bandry, in or about 1707, setting forth in great 

 grief the constitutional decay of the Kentish 

 pippin — a variety at the present day as healthy 

 as it was at any period of its existence. No 

 doubt, many of the apples and pears of the fif- 

 teenth and sixteenth centuries have disappeared, 

 as will not a few originated from seed even in 

 the present century before it has closed. But 

 this very naturally arises from the circumstance 

 of their being superseded by better sorts, or be- 

 ing found inferior to many old ones still in cul- 

 tivation. Many of the trees in the Herefordshire 

 orchards, to which Mr Knight alludes as being 

 the diseased progeny of others long since dead, 

 having outlived their prescribed period of exist- 

 ence, which he limits to two hundred years, 



may ere this, as has been justly remarked by 

 Mr Hogg (" British Pomology," p. 97), have dis- 

 appeared also, "having performed their part, 

 and fulfilled the end of their existence." The 

 golden pippin, amongst others which Mr Knight 

 names as being now worn out, appears to be in 

 as thriving a condition, when not maltreated, 

 as it was two hundred years ago. In the Bromp- 

 ton Park nursery, Mr Hogg assures us, (p. 97,) 

 the same golden pippin has been cultivated for 

 nearly two centuries, and continued from year 

 to year by grafts taken from the young trees in 

 the nursery quarters. " I never," he says, " saw 

 the least disposition to disease, canker, or decay 

 of any kind ; but, on the contrary, a free, vigor- 

 ous, and healthy growth." The vine, the peach, 

 and the apricot have been propagated by exten- 

 sion since the earliest ages, yet we never hear of 

 a wearing out of any of the varieties of these 

 trees ; and this possibly arises from their being 

 treated in a more natural manner, or more care 

 being bestowed on their cultivation, than has 

 been the case with the apple, which, we know 

 from ocular demonstration, is nowhere worse 

 managed than in the very Herefordshire orchards 

 to which Mr Knight refers. 



