Seedling Apples For the second year running I have watched
the experiment, on a commercial scale, of the sowing of apple pips for the sake of growing trees on which to graft cider apples. Each year the pips have germinated to so large a percentage as seriously to interfere with one another. The long lines across the length of a field made a band that looked like clover. On the same field oak trees, for filling up gaps in the woods, were being grown from acorns ; and close by were a number of holly seedlings. It is surprising that more of us do not enjoy the amusement of growing trees from seed. I have eaten delicious peaches yielded by a bush grown from a stone planted only eight years earlier. Most seeds are easy to grow if you know their ways—and enemies. Apple seeds must be kept moist and must be defended from greenfinches. Mice, if they happen to be at all numerous, will eat every other acorn, and holly seeds seldom germinate till the second year. The apple, of course, is much the quickest of growth of the three and, indeed, is often surprising. There seems to be no reason why we should get such trees from abroad. •
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