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©OLBEK FIFFIKo 
HE original variety of the Golden Pippin 
has not imfrequently been referred to as 
evidence against the theory of the late Pre- 
sident of the Horticultural Society — T. A. 
Knight, Esq. This distinguished physio- 
logist maintained that the Apple tree had its 
period of youth, before it became fruitful; its period of strength 
and fertility; and that of old age and decrepitude. In his 
“Treatise on the Culture of the Apple and Pear,” he says, — 
“Vegetable, however, like animal life, in individuals, appears 
to have its limits fixed by nature, and immortality has alike 
been denied to the oak and to the mushroom ; to the being of 
a few days, and of as many centuries. The general law of 
nature must be obeyed, and each must yield its place to a suc- 
cessor. The art of the planter readily divides a single tree 
into almost any number that he wishes ; but the character of 
the new trees, thus raised, is very essentially different from that 
of a young seedling plant; they possess a preternatural ma- 
turity, and retain the habits and diseases of the tree of which 
they naturally formed a part.” A graft may for awhile be 
renovated by a young and healthy stock, but a few years exhibit, 
in its expanded branches, all the afflictions of its aged parent. 
T 
