GARDENS AND ORCHARDS. 175 
2. The Oldfield, is a favourite old pear, remarkable 
for the elegant flavour of its liquor. 
3. The Barland is in great repute, for producing an 
agreeable liquor ; esteemed a specific in nephritic com¬ 
plaints. 
4. The red pear affords a liquor of singular strength. 
5. 6, &c. The HufFcap, the Jaynton, and the Sack, 
have usually been grafted as perry pears; also the 
Linton, and a variety of others, besides a number of 
kernel fruits, that have never been grafted. 
Respecting the wearing out of the old sorts, I believe 
it is irremediable, and what must of necessity naturally 
occur to all vegetables not raised from seed, in a lom»- 
course of time. Dr. Darwin, in his Phytologia, has 
stated, and I think proved, that every bud, or shoot of 
a tree, is a distinct plant, and that a tree, taken indi¬ 
vidually, is of the nature of the polypus, and composed 
of a multitudinous assemblage of distinct plants, con¬ 
nected and nourished from the same stem and set of 
roots, but equally capable of existing separately, if 
placed in a situation where they 7 can be supplied with 
their proper nutriment: that these buds and shoots, 
being produced, and reproduced, from the original 
shoot, and from each other, by solitary propagation, 
must partake of the nature of the original stock, beyond 
which it can never be improved; and from the ten¬ 
dency of all material substances to decay 7 , by successive 
production and reproduction, and being still, as it were, 
but a renewed part of the original stock, it must, in 
length of time, be exhausted of vigour and fertility 7 . 
But this decay, and wearing out, may, probably, be 
protracted to a great length of time by art and manage¬ 
ment ; conducive to which may be the choice of healthy 
and vigorous stocks to graft upon, and receive the 
scion.* 
