102 
Fruit-growing in Kent. 
Most of the apples now produced on the Greensand are grown 
on land that is dug and hoed continuously, either upon full-sized 
standard or half-standard trees. The former, from too much 
or too little pruning, and neglect of long standing, are in an 
unsatisfactory state, not yielding a tithe of what might be 
expected. The half-standards, though not frequently met with, 
are comparatively young trees, having been trained in the way 
they should go in more enlightened times, and their fruit is of 
better size and quality. As has been shown, the land is thickly 
covered with trees of various kinds, so that in Midsummer it is 
often as difficult to force a way through some fruit plantations 
as through an ordinary copse, and it is a question whether the 
under trees, whose roots are nearer the surface, do not absorb 
the bulk of the manure and thus starve the apple-trees. In the 
Weald of Kent apples are grown principally on grass-land, the 
fruit grown in this way being of a somewhat better colour and 
quality than that which has been produced on cultivated land ; 
and practical men hold that, independently of this, all apples 
grown on the Weald clay and Hastings sand are superior in 
colour and size and make better cider than the fruit grown in 
other parts of Kent, though there is not much difference as re- 
gards quantity. It is certain that apples grown on grass are 
not so liable to specks and blemishes. In the formation of an 
apple-orchard intended for grass, it is found in practice to be 
best to plant the trees on well trenched land, and to lay it down 
after a few years, when the trees are well established. I 
have planted apple-trees of the excellent variety known as 
" Lord Suffield " on grass-land and on cultivated land at the same 
time, both being manured in the same way ; those on the culti- 
vated land grew away from those on grass in a remarkable 
degree, and bore fruit the second year, while the others did not 
bear for three or four years. Apples are raised entirely from 
grafts. The tendency to reversion in this plant, in common 
with others of a fruit-bearing character, renders it impossible to 
depend upon plants raised from seed, or upon obtaining like from 
like. If the pips of the best sorts of apples are planted, they 
reproduce heterogeneous varieties. When chance has developed 
a prodigy, it is well known to fruit-growers that this can only 
be surely perpetuated by scions or grafts. Mr. Knight in his 
' Pomona Herefordiensis,' described a method of raising new 
sorts, by crossing varieties by artificial impregnation. Mr. Knight 
certainly produced new sorts, but it is questioned whether they 
were not the results of chance or of fecundation by insects. 
Upon this point the leading pomologist of the day lately made 
the following communication to me. " I had endeavoured to 
raise seedling apples by artificial impregnation : having kept 
