1875. 
THE FRENCH PARADISE APPLE. 
97 
THE FRENCH PARADISE APPLE. 
WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 
,\ ¥ E have much pleasure in submitting to the readers of the Florist and 
Pomologist a figure of the true French Paradise Apple , the Pommier 
de Paradis , which, when used as a stock, is of such inestimable value 
in inducing dwarfness and prolificacy in other varieties of Apple. Our 
figure was made from samples obtained in the garden of the Royal Horticultural 
Society at Chiswick, where, after many failures, owing to adverse seasons, Mr. 
Barron succeeded last year in obtaining blossoms and fruits, both of which, as 
well as the foliage, have been included b} r Mr. Fitch in the accompanying plate. 
We take from an article in the Gardeners’ Chronicle of April 25, 1874, the 
following notes on the various Apple stocks then growing at Chiswick :— 
“Mr. Barron has collected from various sources, British and Continental, a 
number of Apple stocks, which are growing side by side, so as to admit of easy 
comparison. Side by side, also, are various Apples worked on the several stocks. 
There are the Crab stocks {Pommiers francs), with long, spreading, rigid, wiry, 
tangled branches, of a deep purplish-black colour, and at the time of our visit 
(April 11) with no vestige either of leaf or flower to be seen. There is the 
Dutch Paradise, of straggling habit, with olive-coloured shoots, in full leaf, but 
without a flower. There is Mr. Rivers’ Nonsuch English Paradise, destitute of 
leaf or flower, and Rivers’ Miniature Paradise, equally late, and scarcely justify¬ 
ing its name. There is Mr. Scott’s Paradise, of very distinct, somewhat pyra¬ 
midal habit, in full leaf, but with scarcely a flower to be seen. There is the 
Doucin, also of pyramidal habit, and producing flowers early. 
“ Then there is the true French Paradise, Pommier de Paradis , obtained from 
the most reliable sources in France, which must unquestionably bear away the 
prize for precocity of flowering and abundance of bloom. By precocity we mean 
not only early flowering with regard to season, but with reference to age also ; 
while other stocks of the same age have not reached the fruiting stage, this one 
has already done so. It is of rather straggling habit, but full of flower. While 
some stocks at the time of our visit were scarcely showing flower and others none 
at all, this one stood out in the row sheeted over with pale pink blossoms. These 
qualities it very markedly contributes to the grafts. Short compact growth, and 
early and abundant flowering, characterise the scions grafted on this stock, as they 
characterise the stock itself. A long row in one of the quarters, consisting of 
various Apples grafted on this stock, side by side with rows grafted on other 
stocks, is one of the most striking illustrations of the effects and consequences of 
grafting it has ever been our fortune to witness. The difference in appearance is 
so great that it would almost seem as if the one row were cultivated for fruit, 
the other for timber! By way of illustration we may mention the Rhode 
Island Greening, a vigorous-growing kind, but which when worked on this stock 
becomes subdued, assumes a short, bushy habit, and produces an abundance of 
3rd series.—YIII. 
K 
