Buds in propagating are usually taken from nursery stock, a practice of decades, and there is no wearing out of varieties. Old varieties have lost none of the characters accredited to them a century, or several centuries, ago by pomological writers. Nor does it seem to matter, in respect to trueness to type, whether the buds be taken from a vigorous, young stripling, a mature tree in the heyday of life or some struggling, lichen-covered ancient--all alike reproduce the variety. The hypothesis that fruit-trees degenerate or, on the other hand, that they may be improved by bud-selection, finds no substantiation in this fruit. There seems to be no limit to the number of times its varieties can be propagated true to type from buds.
[40] Varro (B. C. 117-27), as we have seen on page 47, tells when to graft cherries and discusses the process as if grafting cherries were a common operation.
[41] In _The Country-Man's New Art of Planting and Grafting_, written by Leonard Mascall, 1652, the writer says, "Sower Cherries ... will grow of stones, but better it shall be to take of the small Cions which do come from the roots; then plant them.
"Ye must have respect unto the Healme Cherry, [a sweet cherry of the time] which is graft on the wild Gomire [Mazzard] which is another kind of great Cherry, and whether you do prune them or not, it is not materiall; for they dure a long time."
R. A. Austen, in his _Treatise of Fruit Trees_, 1653, writes, "Concerning Stocks fit for Cherry-trees, I account the black Cherry stock (Mazzard) the best to graft any kind of Cherry upon. Yet some say the red Cherry stock is best for May-Cherries. But the black Cherry stocks are goodly straight Plants full of sap and become greater trees than the red Cherry trees."
John Reid, _The Scots Gard'ner_, 1683, writes, "Dwarfe Cherries on the Morella, or on the common Red Cherrie. Or on that Red geen which is more Dwarffish than the black."
John Lawrence, _The Clergyman's Recreation_, 1714, declared that, "Black Cherries (Mazzard) are the only Stocks, whereon to raise all, the several sorts of Cherries."
[42] "The practice of grafting and inoculating in America is but of modern date. It was introduced by Mr. _Prince_, a native of New York, who erected a Nursery in its neighborhood about forty years ago. But since the late American revolution, others have been instituted in this and some other parts of the United States. Mr. _Livingston_ has lately established one, not far from the city of New York, which can vie with some of the most celebrated ones in Europe. May he, and others, who have undertaken in that useful branch of business, meet with encouragement and success. Nothing in the extensive field of Horticulture can afford more agreeable amusement or yield more solid satisfaction and advantage." Forsyth on _Fruit Trees_, Albany, N. Y., =1803=:278.