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THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



seed. Every Ribston pippin in the kingdom, propagated by 

 any other means than by seed, is no other than a part, a wing 

 or a branch, of the original Ribston, discovered at Ribston 

 Hall, in Yorkshire, and that such trees, it is supposed, do 

 not only inherit the properties of the parent in size, shape, and 

 flavor, but they also inherit all the train of diseases with which 

 the original was affected. This is an important consideration, 

 and deserves the most serious attention, as we see many of 

 our old and standard fi'uits fast hastening to decay. Mr. 

 Knight and others have discovered this in the Herefordshire 

 orchards, in which many of the esteemed fruits, and which 

 were really good one hundred years ago, are now scarcely so 

 good as the wild apple in the hedges. Apples removed from 

 one country to another are sometimes materially improved by 

 the removal ; thus, the Balgon pippin, an esteemed Scotch 

 apple, similar to the golden pippin, is supposed to be nothing 

 else than the golden pippin imported from England, about the 

 period when that fine apple was in its prime. The case is the 

 same on the opposite side; the Ribston pippin, originally 

 brought from England into Scotland, is there one of the finest 

 apples in the country, and deserves a south wall in many 

 places, much better than some of the inferior peaches ; while, 

 on the other hand, when it has been again brought into Eng- 

 land, it is not to be compared to many even of the third rank 

 of merit. Although the Hawthorndean may be an exception 

 to this rule, it is an excellent Scotch kitchen-apple, and is the 

 same in the south of England. Many of the old apples and 

 pears now growing in the old monastic orchards, appear to us 

 to be of little merit, and we generally content ourselves with 

 the idea, that they may have been esteemed by a monk of the 

 twelfth century, because he had no better ; but, at the same 

 time, it is probable, that the same apple or pear was then little 

 inferior to our Jargonelle, or summer Boncretien. We have 

 had an opportunity of observing an instance of this kind, in 

 the garden of the clergyman of Kenmore, in Breadalbane, in 

 which there is a Jargonelle tree of huge dimensions, and 

 which probably has been a scion of one of the trees in the 

 orchard of the nuns of Loch Tay, which is contiguous to it. 

 This tree conlinucs to bear a great crop of fruit annually, but 



