' STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. I5I 



prairies in Southern Illinois from beinp^ regarded as a total failure. It 

 rarely blights in the worst soils; it bears young; it is our largest pear, 

 and exhibits a rich gokien color when properly ripened. It has sold for 

 higher prices than any other pear, and when in its best estate, it is truly 

 a magnificent fruit in appearance, and scarcely second to the best in 

 flavor. But unluckily it is sometimes insipid in quality under the best 

 of treatment, and always so when allowed to overbear. It is a poor pear 

 for a lazy man. Next to Bartlett and Flemish Beauty, I think it the 

 most largely planted pear in the West. Presented to the public, as it ver)' 

 often is, when two-thirds grown, from overladen trees, perhaps no variety 

 has contributed so much to extinguish a liking for all pears among the 

 swindled consumers. 



While pears are among the most cosmopolitan of fruits, 3'et there are 

 some varieties which seem to posess certain fixed adaptabilities to climate, 

 and develop their best points only under favorable temperatures. The 

 Louise Bonne de Jersey is a conspicuous illustration of this principle. 

 It grows to entire perfection in the Channel Islands; it does well in the 

 marine climate of New England, and is still a good pear at manv points 

 farther west, but it loses quality as it goes south, both in ti-ee and fruit, 

 generally becoming coarse and astringent in Southern Illinois. At Cob- 

 den it has suflered badly in our last two winters, and it loses its leaves 

 earlv in most locations. I have known it hold its foliage well in two or 

 three cases in grass, or grown in a shaded spot on the north of buildings; 

 but in the bottoms below Villa Ridge, its foliage is held as well as that 

 of Beurre d'Anjou. Wherever this pear is healthy in habit of tree and 

 free from astringency in fruit, it should be largely grown, for it gets a very 

 salable color, and its flavor is of a positive, aromatic, excellent quality. 

 The Vicar of Winkfield is another important instance of degeneration 

 by moving to lower latitudes. It was once ranked as first amonsr 

 Massachusetts pears, and still holds high position there; but it loses its 

 good quality in its emigration to the West and southward, until it has very 

 little of that article left on the hills of Egypt, and is said to be quite 

 inedible in the Gulf States. And yet I would not wholly discard the 

 Vicar in Illinois. It blights sadly in many places to be sure, but where 

 it can be kept healthy it will yield grand crops of robust, fair-formed 

 fruit. The Vicar has its own place to fill. It is generally good to bake, 

 to stew, to pickle; but it will prove more valuable as a market fruit. It 

 should be grown to sell in those markets which prefer the Pennock and 

 Ben Davis apples, or to the good people who buy the California grade of 

 pears. 



The Seckel and Lawrence are examples of the reverse action of this 

 efl^ect of climate. Each of these pears is the standard of excellence in 

 its season at the North and East; and they both improve in size and flavor 

 as they move southward. The walnut-sized Seckels of the New York 

 market, or of Michigan and Northern Illinois, are all little mouthfuls of 

 delicious sweetness; \\ bile those grown at Alton, about St. Louis, and in 

 lower Egypt, have some three times the weight, and a positive improve- 

 ment in flavor; and my information is, that the further south they go, 



