8 
could not by any means be made to produce fruit. Having 
taken cuttings from some of these of two years old, I inserted 
them in stocks of twenty years old, which had already pro- 
duced fruit. 1 afterwards frequently transplanted, and took 
every means in my power to make them produce blossoms; 
but though they grew in rich ground, which probably tended to 
accelerate their maturity, I did not succeed till the seedling trees 
were twelve years old ; and then other grafts of the same kind, 
which had been inserted but three years before, and the seed- 
ling trees themselves readily blossomed. Other cuttings were 
inserted in very old stocks, which were regrafted; these grew 
with excessive vigour, but did not produce blossoms so soon as 
the others.” 
“In these experiments I observed that the leaves of the young 
seedling plants annually changed their character, and became 
more thick and fleshy, assuming more the appearance of those 
of the old cultivated kinds. These external changes evidently 
indicated some internal ones in the constitution of the plant, 
which are probably similar, in their nature, to those which take 
place in animals between their infancy and the time when they 
become capable of |)ropagating their species.” 
“The periods, which seedling apple-trees require to attain 
sufficient maturity to produce fruit, appears to admit of more 
variation than my first experiments induced me to suppose. 
Some, which I raised, did not produce blossoms till they were 
sixteen years old ; others have blossomed in the ninth and 
tenth year ; and two plants at only five years old; I consider these 
as extraordinary instances of early maturity, as these two only 
have occurred in more than twenty thousand seedling trees that 
have come under my observation, The rapid change of cha- 
racter in the leaves of these plants attracted my observation 
when they were but two years old, and I then inserted grafts 
from one of them in older stocks. These did not blossom in the 
last spring; but the form and character of their buds already 
indicate that they possess the habit and maturity of the tree 
from which they were taken, and that an abundant blossom is 
forming for the succeeding season. In this instance the grafts, 
which were inserted in older stocks, produced blossoms one year 
later than the seedling tree : in a few other instances the grafted 
trees have preceded the others a single year ; but this has been 
