Part 56

Last, and worst of all, comes the apple. The scion grows as vigorously upon the apple as upon a stock of its own species, and we do not know that the fruit deteriorates. But the trees seem to have no constitution. After a few bearings they seem struck with irremediable weakness, and soon run down and die. Nurserymen ought not, therefore, to graft the pear upon the apple. To do so, if advised of the foregoing facts, cannot be honest. Our attention has been called to the subject by some painful experience of our own.

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NESHANOC POTATO.—This potato (pronounced Meshanoc), was raised from the seed about the year 1800, by John Gilkey, Mercer county, Pennsylvania. He called it Neshanoc, from a creek near to which he lived. It was called by some, Mercer, from the county in which it was raised. It is extensively cultivated, and deserves to be. Mr. Gilkey was an Irishman—of course a judge of good potatoes.

SEEDLINGS FROM BUDDED PEACHES.

Mr. Nicholas Longworth inquires: “Will the pit of the budded peach produce the same fruit as the bud, or as the stock, or a mixture of the two?” And he also says, “I have never fairly tested the question, but my experience led me to believe that the budded pit produced the same fruit as the original stock.”

So far as this question can be determined (independently of experiment) upon the known laws of the vegetable kingdom, we say that it will not produce fruit like that of the original stock; nor will it, on the other hand, with any certainty, reproduce the budded kind.

If the pit of a budded variety takes after the stock, we must very much change our theory of the office of leaves, and perhaps of the bark. At present, the received and orthodox teaching is, that the sap from the root is crude and undigested until it has received in the leaf a chemical change. Until then, the sap does not materially influence the vegetable tissue, nor form new substance, or affect the fruit. But after its elaboration in the leaf, a returning current of prepared sap (similar in its functions to arterial blood), sets downward, distributing to every part of the vegetable economy the properties required by each. The sap arising from the root, does not touch the channel of fruit until it has been chemically changed; and the difference exhibited in the fruit of one tree compared with another, arises, primarily from the nature of the sap which it receives; the sap receives its qualities by a digestion in the leaf. In all cases, then, we suppose the leaf to determine the nature of the fruit (and the root in no case, and the trunk in no case), since the stem is, so far as sap is concerned, but a bundle of canals for its passage—a mere highway for transmission—and not like the leaf, a laboratory for its preparation!

We may be reminded that a stock, in point of fact, does influence the fruit. It is indisputable that pears are changed on quince roots. The Wilkinson, grafted upon the quince, is smaller, more prolific, higher flavored, and of a brighter red cheek than if grafted on the pear. The Duchesse d’Angoulême is larger and better on the quince than on its own roots. But what is the influence in this case? When a free-grower is put upon a slow-grower, the point of junction becomes a point of comparative obstruction to the return-sap. It is only a wholesome process of ringing, or decortication. Lindley says:

“When pears are worked upon the wild species, apples upon crabs, and peaches upon peaches, the scion is, in regard to fertility, exactly in the same state as if it had not been grafted at all: while, on the other hand, a great increase of fertility, is the result of grafting pears upon quinces, peaches upon plums, apples upon the thorn, and the like. In these cases, the food absorbed from the earth by the root of the stock is communicated slowly.” And Manning adds: “No other influence have we ever noticed exercised by the scion upon the stock.”

But if, after all, it can be shown by actual trial, that the pits of budded peaches DO go back to the fruit of the stock, why we must receive it, in spite of all theory; for, (and some would do well to heed the maxim), facts must rule our theories, and not theories our fact. But we may properly put any facts seeming to contravene the received theory of the functions of plants in producing fruit, upon their oath, and refuse them, unless they are unquestionable and relevant.

Suppose a budded peach not to yield a fruit at all like the bud, suppose it to resemble the fruit of the stock, it does not follow that the stock influenced the fruit to such a change. Mr. Longworth knows how freely some peaches “sport,” and that all peaches may be made to do it. If a Melacatune be budded upon a Red Rareripe, and the Melacatune pit shows a fruit resembling the Red Rareripe, it must be shown that the blossom had not been crossed by the busy offices of flies, bees, etc., with the pollen of contiguous Red Rareripe-trees.

When a tree is even solitary, it does not follow that a change in fruit which shall make it resemble the stock more than the graft, results from the force of the stock on the grafted fruit, for seedlings of grafted fruit are, notoriously often, base and degenerate; and the resemblance might be accidental, for seedlings of different origin are often strikingly alike.

While we are aware of no facts which justify Mr. Longworth’s suspicion, that the pits of budded varieties produce kinds like the stock on which the bud was put, we have facts enough showing that “budded pits” produce their own kind.

It may be added that thoroughly ripe peaches are less inclined to “sport” than those which are partially green.

The fruit itself still further elaborates the sap, else a peach would be as acrid as the juice of the peach leaf.

Loudon (Encyclopædia of Gardening, p. 448), has the following remarks:

“The bark is the medium in which the proper juices of the plant, in their descent from the leaves, are finally elaborated and brought to the state which is peculiar to the species. From the bark these juices are communicated to the medullary rays, to be by them deposited in the tissue of the wood. The character of timber, therefore, depends chiefly upon the influence of the bark: and hence, it is that the wood formed above a graft never partakes, in the slightest degree, of the nature of the wood below it. The bark, when young and green, like the leaves, is supposed, like them, to elaborate the sap, and hence may be considered as the universal leaf of a plant.”

These views corroborate the reasoning above, although Loudon extends the functions of the leaf to the bark. We have not been able, in our limited range of books, to find any other authority for this statement, respecting the “young and green bark.”

CARE OF PEACH-TREES.

Take a light hoe and remove the earth from the trunk of your trees. If there are worms there you may detect them from the gum which has exuded, or by the channels which they have made in the bark, or if by neither of these, by the discoloration of the bark in spots. Scrape the bark gently with the back of a knife, and you can easily detect the traces of worms if any are there. Cut freely and boldly both ways along their track so as to lay bare the channel in its whole length—remove the worm, and the bark will very soon heal. Sometimes four, six, and even more will be found in one tree. The ashes of stone coal, blacksmiths’ cinders, wood ashes, lime, the refuse stems of tobacco, planting tansy around the trunk, these, and dozens of other remedies are proposed. For our own part we rely solely on our jack-knife. In March or April, and then again in August or September, according to the season, we search the trunk thoroughly. We can attend to twenty trees in an hour or two; and when eating freely of delicious peaches we never had a qualm of regret for having so spent the time.

We have practised sowing salt under fruit-trees with decided advantage. If one pound of saltpetre be added to every six pounds of salt, it will be yet better. We sow enough to make the ground look moderately white, and prefer to do it in wet weather.

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The most salable butter, quality being equal, is that which is neatest done up. There is a great deal in the looks of a thing. You’ll always find it so.

RENOVATING PEACH-TREES.

The peach-tree inclines to thicken at the top, the small inside branches die, and are removed by every neat cultivator. As the branches shoot up, this tree is disposed to abandon its lower branches, and, like the vine, to bear on the wood the farthest from the root, i. e. the young and new wood. In a few years the tree has a long-necked trunk, sometimes several of them; while the weight of foliage and fruit is situated so as to act like a power applied to a lever; and as the fruit grows heavy, or a storm occurs, the tree is broken down. We have practised the following method with success. In the month of July we saw off the top of one half of the tree, leaving about ten or twelve feet of stem, measuring from the ground. New shoots will now put out along the whole trunk; a part of these should be rubbed off, according to the judgment of the cultivator, leaving such as will give symmetry to the tree, and form a head low down. The second year, these branches will bear fruit, and the other side may then be treated in the same way.

This new head will require little meddling with for about four years. At this time, or whenever the tree is outrunning itself, the same process is to be renewed. But this time the tree will be composed of a multitude of smaller branches, instead of two or three main ones as at first. Some of these should be wholly cut out, and the wound smeared with a residuum of paint, or a thick white paint, or grafting wax, or anything that will exclude the air while the cut is granulating. The others are to be cut within, say, five inches of the old, original wood—leaving, thus, a stem of mere stumps. If the branches are taken entirely off, leaving only the oldest wood, the buds which would break from it would not be as healthy or vigorous as those which will spring from the stumps of the later branches.

Probably twenty or thirty whips will come to each stump; these should from day to day be reduced in number, until, at last, all are removed but one, and that one should, if possible, spring from the nearest point where the stump joins the old stem. When this new branch is obtained and fairly established, remove the stump with a fine saw, so as to leave the new branch, as nearly as possible, in the place of the old one. We remove the whips from a stump gradually in order to give the tree the advantage of their leaves as long as it can be done without interfering with the branch or branches which we are training out.

This method is to the peach what pruning is to the grape. The tree is kept in hand instead of sprawling abroad, a prey to its own weight and to storms; there is always a plenty of young wood for the fruit, which can be easily reached when one thins out, or gathers for use.