(Translated from the German of Dial).

I must naturally suppose that persons ignorant of the art of fruit culture may wish to raise fruit trees in pots, and for such many an explanation is necessary, which those skilled in the art will excuse. The operations of grafting, though, I will omit, as they may be found described fin any book treating of fruit culture. The peculiar requirements of raising fruit trees in pots is our only aim. Each kind of fruit of the two botanical classes Pyrus and Prunus, (kernel and stone fruit,) or the three * pomological classes, after the system of nature, as apples, pears, and stone fruit, requires for its pure propagation through grafting, certain so-called stocks, peculiar to it, if it is to thrive well, and bear fruit of its own natural quality. Pomologists of the oldest times undertook, indeed, many experiments to elevate nature over itself, or, rather, to disturb its course and produce monsters. These experiments exhibit the childishness of their pomology, which, with the true knowledge of nature, lay yet in its cradle. They would produce stone fruit without stones, fruit impregnated with foreign species I They grafted peaches on willows to have them of the melon size.

No extraneous grafting has, as is just, remained to us, but pear on quince; the hawthorn, (Crataegus oxyacantha) has long ago been dismissed. For apples, then, nature gives us two kinds of stocks, namely, the wild apple tree, (Mains sylvestris,) and the wild apple shrub, (Malus pumila.) For culture in pots, only the latter can be used, if we expect yearly fruitfulness and durability of our trees. This wild apple shrub has, from the time of maturing its fruit, received the name of "Pomme de St. Jean," (John Apple,) in France. Paradise apple (Pomme de Paradis) piety may have named it because it has four seed chambers. This shrub will scarcely ever grow over three inches thick, and eight to ten feet high, and bears small, insipid apples. It is of very slow growth as a tree, like all the shrubs, but, like these, it also throws up suckers from two to four feet high in one year, and it has, likewise, only creeping roots, but no tap root, which is necessary only for trees proper. But as in this peculiar kind of root lays the reason of its slow shrubby growth, so does it constitute its great usefulness for fruitful dwarf trees. The propagation of the paradise apple is, like that of most other shrubs, from suckers.

These it often throws up, even when grafted in large numbers; not, like the plum tree, from its distant feeding roots, but mostly from the neck of the root; sometimes, also, from the stronger roots near it. By these suckers we can propagate it abundantly for our nurseries, and they have the peculiarity, by which they are specifically distinct from suckers of seedlings, that even the smallest, scarcely of the size of a crow quill, immediately pushes forth its own roots, so that they, also, do little harm to the parent tree.

* Why the author, dividing the class pyrus into the two pomological classes of applet and pears, does not also divide the class prunus into plums, peaches, apricots, and cherries, is an enigma to the translatior.

To raise paradise apples stocks from cuttings, as some propose, I will advise no one to try, for I must say that I have not yet succeeded in raising a single one in this manner. Even if such cuttings seemed to thrive the first season, they invariably died the second. The stump in the ground never had a root, but cankerous all over. The way in which roots form on the French paradise apple is quite peculiar to it; namely, on the neck of the root form first small, but often a half inch wide, oval or round protuberances, which have much similiarity to roots. From these grow out numerous small, beard-like swellings, which all elongate into fine feeding roots, not unlike a beard. If such a tree is placed near a moist, shady wall, these beard roots will even shoot out in the open air towards the wall, and take hold in its crevices. So, also, these roots are often seen creeping on the surface of the ground, which should be well remembered in digging, especially when suckers are desired.

These mere fibrous or feeding roots are the cause why trees grafted on such stocks make no rampant growth, and, therefore, by the slower air cultivation of the sap, soon form numerous shoots, (Lambourdes) and fruits spurs, (Brindilles,) which, through the manner of their growth and position, are protected against the vertical impulse of the sap in so far that the checked circulation of the latter permits the formation of innumerable annular swellings, (Bourrelets,)* which are inexhaustible in fruitfulness.

It should not be supposed, though, for this reason the whole tree grows too slow. The leaders for the enlargement of the tree have, nevertheless, a lively growth, and often make summer shoots of from one to four feet long. Of this wild apple shrub we have two varieties, perhaps, and probably even three. The first is the paradise apple proper, which 1 call the French, and which is generally disseminated, and well-known to every gardener. To this variety, apples particularly the characteristic just given, especially in regard to the oval protuberances. This variety is the smallest, has the most beard roots, (chevelure.) and the leaves are of a dark green, glossy, deeply indented, small, and lancet-shaped.

In Holland the second variety is found. The roots of this are stronger, the bark of older trees resembling that of the hawthorn, and the roots, although also grow-ing in bundles, are less abundant, and do not spring from those warts, which even in the open air run out into roots. The leaves are of a light green, are softer to the touch, and of an oval shape, pointed at the end, deeply indented with an undulating edge, (folia undulats).

*These annular swellings are one of the most remarkable contrivances of nature in the vegetation of fruit-bearing trees. They are intended as dams against the impetuous flow of the sap. Every twig of a tree, which is preparing to bear fruit, has its own economy, for the elaboration of the sap for its own end, and to prepare it for the fruit The sap flows slower through the swellings, which are in reality the natural product of the scales of the leaf and fruit buds. The former have only a few, the latter many more scales; therefore the more or less visible annular swellings. I will here remark, that when dwarf trees are pruned so closely, that these swellings disappear and grow out into leaders, then the pruning is faulty. In this consists the unwise summer pruning, where no resisting annular swellings have formed yet.