20 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



more experienced and my more highly scientific brothers in our 

 beautiful craft. As soon as we touch Nature we at once come 

 into line with that which, to my mind, is sacred. Consequently 

 development becomes more and more beautiful as the practical 

 result grows and opens out like a bloom into perfection of form, 

 and into increasingly fair promise of fruitfulness. The interest 

 naturally begins with the insertion of the scion into its healthy 

 stock. The stock must be sound if the result has to be in the 

 slightest degree satisfactory ; if the tree is good under given 

 healthy conditions, by-and-by the fruit will be good also ; if not, 

 look not for results. These are truths as old as the hills ; these 

 are facts we need not be afraid to state. My simple method — 

 and what a glorious beauty there is in simplicity — consists in the 

 introduction of scion buds into stocks of known beauty, both as 

 to form, colour, and taste or flavour of fruit, particularly flavour, 

 for as it has been said as to the form divine, how often pretty 

 faces have pulp for brains ; so too in fruit often the fairest are 

 the faultiest, and that where we have looked for the sweetness 

 of success, we have only found the crude acid of disappoint- 

 ment ; but, after all, this is only natural in the somewhat crabbed 

 and contrary region of patient research into the mysteries of 

 Nature's legion prizes of richest value. Of one thing, however, 

 we may be certain, whatever the method we adopt for the nonce, 

 in the mode of investigation we shall have, through the natural 

 force of circumstances over which we have no control, to wait, 

 so that the choice of a stock is of paramount importance, for 

 with its vitality and freshness and lusciousness of sap will depend 

 the prompt response of the scion bud, the instant union becomes 

 most markedly sensitive and most perfect in its sympathetic 

 work of change. Consequently the buds cannot be too full of 

 life, and I think if we could only by some system of natural 

 pressure create almost an overflow of fluid, it would materially 

 add to success ; but besides the healthiness of the stock we must 

 add the maturity of the stock, and this is a subject which all 

 know perfectly well, as one of the chief, if not the chief essential 

 in the matter of obtaining a quick return. They who plant 

 pears plant for their " heirs " is a very good saying, because time 

 has proved its truthfulness, and it has doubtless become the 

 popular motto for the practical fruit-grower not to deprive the 

 heir of his, or Nature's heritage, but to see how he can easiest 



