PROPAGATION OF THE APPLE. 



635 



the above selection, which has been made with a view to both quality 

 and abundance of produce. In general, small-sized fruit are to be pre- 

 ferred for standards, as less likely to break down the branches of the 

 trees, or be shaken down by winds ; middling- sized and high flavoured 

 sorts for walls ; and the largest of all for espaliers. In respect to 

 a soil liable to produce canker, sorts raised from cuttings may be 

 desirable, as the Burknott and codling tribe ; and where an occupier 

 of a garden has only a short interest therein, such as come into imme- 

 diate bearing, as the Burknotts and others from cuttings, and the Haw- 

 thornden and other short-lived dwarf sorts on Paradise or creeping stocks, 

 may deserve the preference. On the contrary, where a plantation is 

 made on freehold property, or with a view to posterity, new varieties on 

 crab or free stocks should always be chosen, as, if for cider, the Orange, 

 Ingestrie, Harvey, &c. Some excellent sorts will grow and produce crops 

 everywhere, as the Hawthornden, codling, and Ribston pippin ; the latter of 

 which Nicol says, will grow at John o' Groat's House, and may be planted 

 in Cornwall ; others are shy bearers in cold situations, as the Newtown 

 pippin of America, most of the newl3^-imported French sorts ; and the Ita- 

 lian apple Malo di Carlo, which though exceedingly beautiful and delicious 

 in the north of Italy, proves pale and insipid in England in our finest 

 summers. Indeed, the apples of the south of Europe generally, when 

 transplanted to England, prove worthless. See 887. 



1147. Propagation, — The apple may be propagated by seeds, cuttings of 

 the branches or roots, by layers, suckers, inarching, grafting, or budding, 

 but the two last modes are most generally adopted for continuing varieties, 

 and seeds are seldom resorted to, except when new varieties are the object. 

 Only a few sorts, such as the Burknott, some of the codlings, and the creep- 

 ing apple, can be increased readily by cuttings ; but this mode is resorted to 

 occasionally, when these kinds are wanted as stocks for grafting on. Suckers 

 from a grafted tree can only be used as stocks; but from kinds of apple which 

 are used chiefly as stocks, such as the paradise apple, suckers are not an 

 uncommon mode of propagation. It thus appears that the first step in the 

 propagation of the apple by grafting or budding, is the propagation of the 

 stock. Crab stocks are raised from seeds of the wild crab, and are used 

 when the object is strong and durable trees ; wildings or seedling apple 

 stocks, are used for strong trees in good soils, and are raised from seeds of 

 apple trees, most commonly of free-growing seedlings, which have grown in 

 hedges in cider counties, or from cider apples ; dwarfing stocks, such as the 

 paradise, doucin, creeping apple, and some codlings, are commonly raised 

 from layers (625) and suckers. Seedlings, after one year's growth in the 

 seed-bed, are transplanted in rows, three feet apart and eighteen inches dis- 

 tance in the row | and they are commonly grafted the third or fourth spring 

 from the seed, when they are from half an inch to one inch in thickness. 

 Both dwarfs and standards are commonly grafted within a few inches of the 

 ground, and the standards are formed by encouraging the leading shoot, 

 which is commonly cut over at the end of the second year at the height of 

 five or six feet from the ground, and after it has grow^n another season in the 

 nursery, the side-shoots being cut off about midsummer, it is fit for being 

 transplanted to where it is finally to remain. If the tree should not be 

 sold or transplanted the first year after the head is formed, the shoots are 



