59. It is necessary that the stock should be a member of the same genus or natural family with the graft or bud to be inserted on it. The principal kinds of stocks employed are the following : For apples, Common apple, from the kernels, for full standards.
Crab apple, from the kernels, for half standards. Codlin, from layers or cuttings, Paradise, from layers, Creeper, from layers, all for dwarf trees.
For pears, Common pear, or wilding, from the kernels, for full standards.
Quince, from the kernels, or by layers, for dwarf mid espalier trees.
For plums, apricots, Peaches, nectarines, and almonds, Red-wheat plum, either from stones, or layers, or suckers.
Black muscle plum, the same.
Greengage plum, the same.
Bullace-plum, a common native species, which has received its trival name, P. inaitiiia, from being used for stocks.
For cherries, Small black cherry of the woods Prunes cerasua ; and, Wild red cherry of the woods, P. avium.
60. It may here be remarked, that seedling stocks, which have a natural tendency to attain the full height of the cies to be grafted on them, are by horticulturists universally denominated free-stocks. If the seeds of different varieties of apples and pears be sown, free-stocks, suited for the grafting of apples and pears, are, generally speaking, duced. When very great numbers of such stocks arc wanted, the seeds are procured from the manufactures of cider and perry; but where a private gentleman wishes only to have a few hundreds of stocks, it seems much better to employ only select seeds, that is, the kernels from good specimens of hardy and healthy kinds of choice fruits, when in a ripe state. Crab stocks are very much used : the seeds are to be procured in quantity only where juice is made from the fruit. The paradise apple is of no estimation as a fruit ; but the tree being naturally dwarf, grafting on it tends to dwarf the engrafted tree. The creeper apple has got its name, from its tendency to throw up suckers, which are easily detached with roots : it is sometimes called the Dutch paradise. Pear-trees, as ready said, are grafted either on free-stocks from the seeds, or on quince stocks from layers or suckers. The latter are employed chiefly for dwarfing the trees, and throwing them more early into bearing ; but with the view also (whether well or ill-founded is not the question) of ing some degree of hardness and sharpness to the melting sugary pears ; the hard and breaking pears, on the other hand, being placed on free-stocks. For all practical deners, it may be observed, concur in stating, that the ture of the fruit is, to a certain extent, affected by the ture of the stock. Miller says, decidedly, that crab stocks
cause apples to be firmer, to keep longer, and to have a sharper flavour ; and he is equally confident that, if the breaking pears be grafted on quince stocks, the fruit is rendered gritty or stony, while the melting pears are much improved by such stocks. This is scarcely to he ed as inconsistent with Lord Bacon's doctrine, that " the cion overruleth the graft quite, the stock being passive only ;" which, as a general proposition, remains true ; it being evident, that the graft or the bud is endowed with the power of drawing from the stock that peculiar kind of nourishment which is adapted to its nature, and that the specific characters of the engrafted plant remain ed, although its qualities may be partially affected. Quince stocks, it may be added, are also proper, where the soil of the garden is naturally moist, the quince agreeing with such a soil. Peaches and nectarines are, in this try (as noticed in the tabular view) generally budded on plum stocks, particularly the black muscle : but the more tender sorts are placed on seedling stocks of their own kind, raised from peach-stones, or per haps on apricot stocks. In France, almond stocks are much used ; and for this reason the French peach-trees seldom last good more than twenty years, while the English endure twice that period. Apricots also are chiefly budded on plum stocks, the red wheat plum being preferred for them.
61. In the second volume of the London Horticultural Transactions, Mr Knight has given a few remarks on the effects of different kinds of stocks in grafting,—well de serving of attention, as being the result of more than thirty years experience. He is of opinion, that a stock of a spe cies or genus different from that of the fruit to be grafted upon it can rarely be used with advantage, unless where the object of the planter is to restrain or debilitate. lf, therefore, extensive growth and durability be required, the peach, nectarine, or apricot, should not be grafted on the plum ; but if it is intended to diminish the vigour and growth of the tree, and if durability be not thought an im portant quality, the plum stock is proper. The same re mark is applicable to the grafting of pears on quince stocks. The finer sorts of peaches and nectarines are often budded on apricot stocks. Of this Mr Knight approves ; but he adds, that, if lasting and vigorous trees be wished for, the bud cannot be placed too near the ground.