238 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Flemish Beauty, Bartlett and Buffum promised best. In all, there 

 might be two to three hundred trees, planted out for bearing. He 

 transplants them from the woods, heading in the tops severely at 

 the time, and after growing one year, grafts them, (saddle grafting 

 as figured and described on page 1G6 and very skillfully done — no 

 failures,) keeps the soil well cultivated and very rich. 



A question frequently asked is, which is the best pear ? Rather 

 an absurd question it is too, for one may be best at one season and 

 another when that is gone by ; one best as regards intrinsic excel- 

 lence, and another to cultivate for profit. Again, tastes differ, one 

 favors a sweet pear, while another prefers a high vinous flavor. 

 The question, unless qualified or limited, cannot be an'swered. 



It is really a great desideratum to obtain a list of six, ten or 

 twelve varieties of unimpeachable merit, which shall be really 

 good, productive and hardy sorts, filling the seasons well, so as to 

 furnish a supply from the earliest to the latest, and better than any 

 other six or twelve which can be named. But unfortunately our 

 experience is too limited to do this. As before remarked, the bet- 

 ter sorts are all of comparatively recent introduction and they have 

 not all been cultivated extensively enough in various parts of the 

 State aud in differing soils, to furnish the requisite evidence. It 

 takes a good while to learn everything about any one variety 

 which is to be learned* by experience, and besides this, new sorts 

 are all the while coming along, which as they come to proof, one 

 after another, play havoc with lists made out a dozen years before. 

 There is no good cultivator of pears anywhere, whose opinions 

 have not undergone considerable change as to the relative merits 

 of varieties within a shorter period than a dozen years. 



Not less than five hundred sorts, which have come recommended 

 as worthy of culture, have been more or less extensively proved in 

 the State — sometimes nearly a hundred have been shown by 

 single cultivators at our annual exhibitions. Last year Mr. War- 

 ren Sparrow exhibited eighty or more, from his grounds in West- 

 brook, at the fair of the Portland Horticultural society. Of these 

 many kinds, four hundred or more have passed into oblivion or 

 ought to ; but when wc come to the others it is no easy task to 

 state accurately their relative worth. 



An attempt is made below to give a brief description of such as, 

 with the existing attainments in local pomological knowledge, are 

 supposed to be most worthy of cultivation. The critic in such 



