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Persia and China, have been slowly originated from the improvements 
made in the Pyrus malus, or wild crab of the hedges. It is not known, 
at what precise period the process of amelioration commenced. It 
must be assigned, however, to a very high antiquity. Pliny mentions 
several varieties in high cultivation in his time. Apples were known in 
England long before the conquest, and pippins, or seedling improved 
apples, were in cultivation in the southern parts of Europe as early as 
the sixteenth century. Tooke, in his work on Russia, refers to several 
kinds of apples growing there, and originally introduced from Astracan 
and Persia. One variety, the KirefsJcoi , often grew, he says, so large 
as to weigh four pounds ; possessing an agreeable acidulous flavor, and 
keeping for a long time. He speaks also of one variety, originally brought 
from China, as very transparent, full of juice, and extremely well fla¬ 
vored. It was called the nalivuli (full-melting,) and was so full of juice 
as to be almost ready to burst. It was very transparent, and when held 
to the light, the core could be distinctly seen and its seeds counted. From 
these facts, it is evident that the apple has been propagated, not only as 
a species but in its several varieties, from very remote times, and by the 
very mode of culture which is so obnoxious to degeneracy and decay. 
The same is true of the pear. The Curstumean pears were celebrated 
by the early poets. The favorite Syrius pyrus, which Virgil mentions in 
his Georgies, was originally brought from Syria to Rome. It was also 
called the Tarentina, and from its description is believed to be the Berga¬ 
mot pear of the present day. This pear was cultivated by extension at 
Rome, and had been in Syria, no doubt, long before its introduction into 
Western Europe. It is hardly necessary in this connection to mention 
the cultivation of the grape. Every scholar is familiar with its history 
from the time when old Phanaeus, the king of vine-bearing mountains, 
rose up in token of respect to the Amminean vine. We might refer to 
a large number of grasses, which propagate themselves almost exclu¬ 
sively by stoles or scions under ground, but we have already exhausted 
our limits on this branch of the subject. The fig tree, however, affords 
such a remarkable instance of asexual propagation under the sexual sys¬ 
tem, that it demands a brief reference in this connection. The fruit of 
this tree is not a seed vessel, but a receptacle enclosing the flower. The 
male and female flowers are produced on different trees, and both sexes 
are completely immured within the fruit. The fecundating dust cannot 
