MAY. 
137 
Carelessness in selecting scions for grafting is another fertile source of 
degeneracy in varieties. Every good cultivator is aware that if grafts 
are cut from the ends of old bearing branches, exhausted by overbearing, 
the same feebleness of habit will in a great degree be shared by the young 
graft. And on the contrary, if the thrifty straight shoots that are 
thrown out by the upright extremities, or the strong limb sprouts, are 
selected for grafting, they insure vigorous growth and healthy habit in 
the graft. 
Unfavourable soil and climate are likewise powerful agents in 
deteriorating varieties of fruit trees. Certain sorts that have originated 
in a cold climate are often short-lived and unproductive when taken to 
warmer ones, and the reverse. This arises from a want of constitutional 
fitness for a climate different from their natural one. 
Any or all of these causes are sufficient to explain the apparent decay 
of some varieties of fruit. 
Having given this brief explanation of the degeneracy of races, I 
will now take a glance at the actual state of one of the so-called decayed 
varieties—the Ribston Pippin Apple—and see whether it is really 
extinct or on the verge of annihilation. 
You have satisfactorily shown in the Florist for March, that this 
much-esteemed Apple is not extinct-in the south of England; and that 
it has not disappeared from Yorkshire, I am prepared to show. I am 
now writing within three miles of Ribston, and I will show that although 
•the original tree has disappeared, the variety has not ceased to exist. 1 
cannot at present state the exact date of the disappearance of the 
original tree, at Ribston; but it is something more than twenty years. 
.Mr. Abbott, the very able and intelligent gardener at Ribston, has a 
drawing of the original tree as it appeared about thirty years ago. It 
was then only the mere relic of a tree, nearly prostrate on the ground, 
and supported by props; it had scarcely any branches, and from 
appearances it was all but dead. Now if this was the actual state of 
the original tree thirty years ago, it must have been in extremis many 
years before that time. I have been informed that this was actually 
the case. 
If I have made the least mis-statement respecting the original tree 
at Ribston, I shall feel thankful to be corrected. On the spot where 
the original tree stood, there is now growing a young tree, said to be a 
sucker from the original. It makes pretty vigorous growth every year, 
but it can never attain a large size, for two reasons—first, because it has 
a bad crooked stem; and secondly, because it stands singly in a rather 
exposed situation. Prom the above it will be seen that the original tree 
totally disappeared more than twenty years ago; and it was m extremis 
many years previous, and that, according to Mr. Knight’s theory, all 
the other Ribston Apple trees in Yorkshire had ceased to exist. I will 
now show that this is not the case. 
There are at this place twelve Apple trees in a corner of what was 
once a large orchard. The greater portion was taken away upwards of 
sixty years ago, and planted with forest trees, principally Ash, Elm, and 
Sycamore. Many of these measure 12 and 13 feet in circumference 
within 1 foot of the ground. Of these twelve Apple trees, seven are 
