et:

"He was one day with Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Sarum, who, after his warm
manner, cried, 'Ay, you say so; but what proof can you give that you
are not of China, Japan, or any other country?' 'The manner of my
flight,' replied he, 'did not allow me to bring credentials: but
suppose your lordship were in Formosa, and should say you are an
Englishman, might not the Formosan as justly reply, You say you are an
Englishman; but what proof can you give that you are not of any other
country? for you look as like a Dutchman as any that ever traded to
Formosa.' This silenced his lordship."

JAMES CROSSLEY.

* * * * *

GRAFTS AND THE PARENT TREE.

(Vol. vii., p. 365.)

I was surprised to find it stated as "a fact" by MR. INGLEBY, "that grafts,
after some fifteen years, wear themselves out." A visit to one of the great
orchard counties would assure him of the existence of tens of thousands of
grafted apple and pear trees, still in a healthy state, and from forty to
fifty years old, and more. There are grafted trees of various kinds in this
country, which to my own knowledge are upwards of sixty years old; and I
have little doubt but that there are some a good deal older.

The ancient Ribstone pippin, which stood in Ribstone Park, till it died in
1835, was believed to have been grafted. Such was the opinion of one of the
gardeners there; and a writer in the _Gardeners' Chronicle_, 1845, p. 21.,
states that in 1830 he fell in with the Ribstone pippin in great abundance
in Switzerland, in the valley of Sarnen; and he remarks that it is more
probable this apple was introduced into England from that country, than the
reverse. The question has not been conclusively settled.

Notwithstanding "the belief that the graft perishes when the parent tree
decays" is pronounced by MR. INGLEBY to be a fond superstition, yet there
are certain facts, well known to orchard growers, which give some warrant
for it. Without committing myself altogether to this doctrine, I will state
a few of them.

It is well known that no cider or perry fruit is so good, on first being
introduced, as it is after fifteen or twenty years of cultivation. A
certain period seems to be required to mature the new sort, and bring it to
its full vigour (long after it is in full bearing) before it is at its
best. The tree, with all its grafted progeny, will last, perhaps fifty,
perhaps more than one hun