Mr. Knight's Observations 
292 
which I have obtained from seed. This defect may, I think, 
be the immediate cause of the canker and moss, though it is 
probably itself the effect of old age, and therefore incurable. 
Being at length convinced that all efforts, to make grafts from 
old and worn out trees grow, were ineffectual, I thought it pro- 
bable that those taken from very young trees, raised from seed, 
could not be made to bear fruit. The event here answered my 
expectation. Cuttings from seedling apple-trees of two years old 
were inserted on stocks of twenty, and in a bearing state. These 
have now been grafted nine years, and though they have been 
frequently transplanted to check their growth, they have not 
yet produced a single blossom. I have since grafted some 
very old trees with cuttings from seedling apple-trees of five 
years old : their growth has been extremely rapid, and there 
appears no probability that their time of producing fruit will 
be accelerated, or that their health will be injured, by the great 
age of the stocks. A seedling apple-tree usually bears fruit in 
thirteen or fourteen years ; and I therefore conclude, that I 
have to wait for a blossom till the trees from which the grafts 
were taken attain that age, though I have reason to believe, 
from the form of their buds, that they will be extremely pro- 
lific. Every cutting, therefore, taken from the apple (and 
probably from every other) tree, will be affected by the state 
of the parent stock. If that be too young to produce fruit, it 
will grow with vigour, but will not blossom ; and if it be too 
old, it wili immediately produce fruit, but will never make a 
healthy tree, and consequently never answer the intention of 
the planter. The root, however, and the part of the stock 
adjoining it, are greatly more durable than the bearing 
branches ; and I have no doubt but that scions obtained from 
