Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/84

 causes,—from a more abundant and regular supply of nourishment than is afforded in a state of nature, with a favourable clitmate, or protection from the bad effects of an unfavourable one. The offspring of every plant and animal, when unchanged by cultivation, bears a very close resemblance to its parents; but amongst the cultivated kind of each, it is extremely various; still, however, generally shewing some similarity to them. By taking advantage of incidental variations, and by propagating from those individuals which approach nearest to our ideas of perfection, improved varieties of fruit, as well as of animals, are obtained. Much attention has, in the present day, been paid to the improvement of the latter, whilst the former have been almost entirely neglected." * * * (p. p. 3, 4, 5th edit).

The existence of every variety of this fruit (the apple), seems to be confined to a certain period, during the earlier parts of which, only, it can be propagated with advantage to the planter. No kind of apple now cultivated, appears to have existed more than two hundred years; and this term does not at all exceed the duration of a healthy tree, or of an orchard, when grafted on crab stocks, and planted in a strong tenacious soil. * * *