•384 ON THE EXPEDIENCY AND EFFECTS OF GRAFTING. 
acted upon them in so far, that they preferred to plant the newest 
sorts rather than the old ones. The circumstance which suggested the 
idea to the worthy President was not only apparent in Herefordshire, 
but, at that time, all over the kingdom. The old Golden Pippin, the 
Styre, and Fox-whelp, were failing in all directions around Mr. 
Knight s residence, in Herefordshire, and adjoining cider countries; 
and the first of these, a great favourite everywhere, became almost 
barren, and was visibly failing all over the kingdom. 
We well remember discarding and throwing out a good many Golden 
Pippin trees about that time, which had been planted for five or 
six years, without making the least progress in growth, but rather 
declining. Two of these outcasts being planted in a new shrubbery 
then making, (the ground having been deeply trenched,) grew away 
surprisingly in their new place, became abundantly fruitful, and are now 
large and healthy trees. 
This result showed that there was no constitutional decrepitude or 
irrecoverable decay in this variety of apple ; and the same results having 
happened to other planters who had planted the proscribed sorts on 
properly prepared ground in different parts of the kingdom, the impres¬ 
sion against them wore off, and now it is almost forgotten. 
It is quite true that nurserymen have no credit, nor the trees they 
sell approved, if the buyers only stick them into a round deep hole in 
an old orchard or garden, without other preparation. This mode of 
forming or replenishing orchards was very common, both before and 
since the period alluded to. A person resolves to make an orchard of 
one of his meadows ; he digs ranks of holes, buys standard trees, puts 
them in, relays the turf, stakes and bushes the stems to keep off sheep, 
and bids “ God speed.” The consequence of such a proceeding is, that 
the trees, from being so carelessly treated, become stunted, and at the 
end of five or six years, perhaps, are less than they were when planted. 
We make this observation because we know that the failure of new 
orchards, so planted, was accounted for, and the mismanagement 
excused, on Mr. Knight’s principle—viz. that the kinds were “ worn 
out.” 
But we know well that Mr. Knight’s ideas respecting new varieties 
of plants, herbs as well as trees, are not altogether erroneous. We 
have written something on this subject in our last number, at page 322 ; 
and we are quite convinced that, in the first years of the existence of 
a new variety of a plant, it grows with greater vigour than it continues 
to do after it has become an old inhabitant of any one place. In this 
opinion Mr. Knight was perfectly right; and it may have happened 
that many of the favourite varieties of apples being aged trees, presented 
