but a Ribston Pippin. It is well known that the
stock will have an effect upon the variety worked
upon i t ; so will the soil in which it may be planted.
The stock, the soil, the climate, and pruning, all
have an effect; and a combination of these must have
a powerful effect, but never that of producing a per-
manently different thing. If the Mignonne Petite
Peach could be grown to equal in size the Grosse
Mignonne, I would not even then alter my opinion:
but when the reniform glands of the former can be
changed by cultivation into globose, like those of the
latter, it might then be admitted that one sort may
be made into another, independent of being raised
from seed.
Those who read the account of the age of the
parent tree of this excellent sort, and who express
themselves in regard to it as being the best fruit
of Apple kinds, need not be alarmed at the statement
of the old tree being in a state of decay, and
producing latterly but sparingly, and the fruit becoming
smaller than some had recollected to have
seen it. Young trees may be found, free from
canker, growing vigorously, and producing fruit
perhaps superior to that ever produced on the
original.
Are all sorts of trees equally subject to canker ?
— Some are more so than others. Do young trees,
or seedlings lately raised, never canker?—^ Some of
them will. The canker, therefore, does not depend
entirely on the age of the variety. The nature, or
the original constitution of the tree, or the quality
of its sap or juices, is perhaps more the cause than
its age. Soil and situation, if unfavourable, will
stamp the symptoms of decay in a few years.
There are no records to state the fact of any
variety, worth cultivating, having ceased to he.
An annual plant, raised from seed this season,
might henceforth be continued, by cuttings, so long
as the earth and the elements continue nearly in the
same state. Whether di tree may be also so con-;
tinned, may be inferred.
S hoots vigorous, spreading variously; where
bare, of a chestnut colour, sprinkled with pale
roundish sp o t s ; towards the extremities they are
densely covered with a silvery gray pubescence.
Leaves middle-sized, ovate, acuminate, concave,
moderately serrated; beneath silvery with pubescence.
The P etioles also exhibit much of the
latter appearance ; they are of moderate thickness,
and about an inch in length. S tipules lanceolate.
F lowers middle-sized. P etals ovate.
F ruit somewhat above the middle size, rather
flat than oblong, broadest near the b a se; its outline
obtusely angular. The E ve is depressed, large,
with the segments of the calyx converging over it.
S talk short, moderately thick, woolly, sometimes
inserted freely in a tolerably large cavity, and
sometimes thickened at its insertion in a confined
one, with frequently a portion of the base of the
fruit projecting towards it. S kin streaked next
the sun with brownish red, with the ground colour
of a rich, deep, greenish yellow shewing through i t ;
the latter is the colour of the shaded side, disposed
in obscure streaks of a deeper and lighter tin t, in
liLl