Ormesby, St. Margaret, Norfolk.
Grafts and the Parent Tree (Vol. vii., p. 436.).—In order to insure the success of grafts, it is material that they be inserted on congenial stocks: delicate-growing fruits require dwarf-growing stocks; and free luxuriant-growing trees require strong stocks. To graft scions of delicate wooded trees on strong stocks, occasions an over-supply of sap to the grafts; and though at first they seem to flourish, yet they do not endure. A few examples of this sort may lead to an opinion, that "grafts, after some fifteen years, wear themselves out;" but the opinion is not (generally speaking) well founded. I have for many years grafted the old Golden Pippin on the Paradise or Doucin stock, and found it to answer very well, and produce excellent fruit. Taunton has long been famous for its Nonpareils, which are there produced in great excellence and abundance. The Cornish Gilliflower, one of our very best apples, was well known in the time of King Charles I.; and, as yet, shows no symptoms of decay: that fruit requires a strong stock.
The ancient Ribston Pippin was a seedling:
"It has been doubted by some, whether the tree at Ribston Hall was an original from the seed: the fact of its not being a grafted tree has been satisfactorily ascertained by Sir Henry Goodricke, the present proprietor, by causing suckers from its root to be planted out—which have set the matter at rest that it was not a grafted tree. One of these suckers has produced fruit in the Horticultural Garden at Chiswick."—Lindley's Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden, 1831, p. 81.
J. G.
Exon.
Lord Cliff and Howell's Letters (Vol. vii., p. 455.).—The Lord Cliff, as to whom your correspondent inquires, and to whom James Howell addresses some of his letters, is intended for Henry Lord Clifford, and afterwards, on the decease of his father, fifth and last Earl of Cumberland. He died in December, 1643. Amongst the many republications of modern times, I regret that we have no new edition, with illustrative notes, of Howell's Letters. It is the more necessary, as one at least of the later editions of this most entertaining book is very much abridged and mutilated.
James Crossley.
Y. S. M. asks "Who was Lord Cliff?" He might as well have added, "Who was Lord Viscount Col, Sir Thomas Sa, or End. Por?" who also figure in Epistolæ Ho-Elianiæ. Had he looked over that entertaining book more attentively, Y. S. M. would have seen that all these were mere contractions of Howell's correspondents, Lord Clifford, Lord Colchester, Sir Thomas Savage, and Endymion Porter.
J. O.