JUNE. 
175 
air, and, consequently, the creation of a current. May not this current 
of air, produced in many parts of the orchard, serve to dispel the 
moisture, and thus increase the tendency of the pollen masses to perform 
their office, without which the most promising bloom will end in 
disappointment ? 
In one of the garden-rooms we observed a large sheet of paper^ on 
which was written, the “ Rules of Bicton Garden.” These, to the 
number of between twenty and thirty, denoted the disposition of tools, 
and almost every operation in the garden, with the amount of fine in 
case of non-performance. The fines, which are small, are exacted by 
the foreman of the department under his supervision. The result of 
this system is, that in these gardens not a tool of any description is 
found in an improper place, while the houses, sheds, &c., are kept in 
the neatest order, and this with little trouble to the foreman, as it saves 
a great amount of words; the juvenile portion of the hands, in 
particular, take more heed of the deprivation of a penny than the 
most strict injunctions. 
The Park, which in part has for some years past required draining, 
and consequently produced inferior grasses, is now in course of a process 
which will doubtless make its pasture of the best quality. Each season 
a portion of some few acres is trenched deeply, and if necessary well 
drained ; it then undergoes a routine of cropping for three or four years, 
to be after that time again laid down to grass. Mr. Barnes kindly 
took us over a portion of land thus treated, and certainly the crops of 
Mangold, Turnip, Cabbage, &c., were of first-rate quality, and like every 
portion of the estate under his superintendence, denoted great skill of 
management. 0. P. 
DO FRUIT TREES AND HYBRID RACES OF PLANTS 
DEGENERATE ? 
There are and have been some learned men—philosophers, forsooth 
—who would have us believe that there was nothing better for our 
forefathers of the early world to eat than Crabs, Sloes, or astringent 
Grapes; all our fruits, say they, have been derived from parents 
originally worthless—the Apple from the Crab ; Plums from Sloes ; 
the Peach from the Almond, and so on. Those fruits known to the 
ancients, they tell us, were not the first type of their kind, but improved 
varieties of earlier created species ; a progressive development, carried 
on through several generations, had produced a transmutation of matter, 
ending in an improved quality, and what at first was but a worthless 
production became subsequently, through successive stages, valuable 
and nutritious fruit, which too in time would wear out, and be replaced 
by something yet better. All this brought under our notice with such 
a plausible show of reasoning and display of scientific terms was enough 
to make us give up our own plain matter-of-fact convictions, and 
induce us into the belief that the earliest tribes of the human race must 
have fared very indifferently in the shape of fruits ; and we may say 
the same of grain and vegetables, for the rule applies with equal force 
to each. 
