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of vigour to promise much success in their cultivation, except in very favourable situations, even 
should their fruit be good. 
Having before observed that all the old fruits were free from disease when trained to a south 
wall, Mr. Knight thought it not improbable that seedling plants raised from them would be equally 
healthy; and that their blossoms being expanded before those of the neighbouring orchards, they 
would not be impregnated by the farina of inferior kinds. With a view to try this, he prepared 
stocks of the best kind of Apple which could be propagated by cuttings, planted them against a 
south wall, in extremely rich mould, and grafted them with the Slire, Golden Pippin, and a few 
other fruits, whose time of ripening suited the situation in which he wished to plant. In the course 
of the ensuing winter the young trees were dug up, and their roots having been retrenched, were 
planted again in the same places. This mode of treatment had the desired effect of making them 
produce blossoms at two years old. He suffered only one or two fruits to remain on each tree, 
which in consequence attained nearly three times their common size, with a very high degree of 
maturity and perfection; and the appearance of the plants he raised from their seeds so much 
excelled any he had formerly obtained from the same fruits taken from the orchard, that he thinks 
he can confidently recommend the method he adopted. He had chosen fruits possessing excel¬ 
lencies and defects of opposite kinds, with a wish to see, either through the industry of bees or 
his own, the effects of a process similar to what is called by breeders of animals, crossing 
the breed. 
A few days before the blossoms expanded, he opened the petals and destroyed the males in all 
the blossoms which he suffered to remain of one kind, taking great care to leave the females unin¬ 
jured: and when these blossoms were fully expanded, he impregnated half of them with farina taken 
from another kind of fruit, leaving the other half to the care of the bees, which collected about them 
in great numbers. Every fruit which he impregnated grew rapidly, whilst half of those on the other 
tree, which remained in their natural state, failed, with every one of those left to the care of the 
bees. Whence we may conclude that these insects are not so good carriers of the farina of plants, 
as is generally supposed by naturalists. The plants he obtained from the fruits on which this expe¬ 
riment was made, were certainly the most promising of any, but whether they will remain free from 
hereditary disease and debility or not, remains to be proved. Every seed, though taken from the 
same Apple, furnishes a distinct variety; and some of these will grow with more luxuriance than 
others, and the fruits produced by the different plants will possess different degrees of merit; but an 
estimate may be made of their good and bad qualities at the conclusion of the first summer, by the 
resemblance the leaves bear to the highly cultivated or wild kinds. The plants whose buds in the 
annual wood are full and prominent, are usually more productive than those whose buds are small 
and shrunk into the bark; but their future produce will depend much on the power the blossoms 
possess of bearing cold, and this power varies in the different varieties, and can only be known from 
experience. Those which produce leaves and blossoms rather early in the spring are generally to be 
preferred, for though they are more exposed to injury from frost, they less frequently suffer from the 
attacks of insects, the more common cause of failure. 
TIIE END. 
T. Hensley, Printer, B r ilt Court, Fleet Street, London. 
