STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 193 



erated in tree or fruit, but have been discarded for precisely the same 

 reason as we are to-day rejecting new fruits, viz: inferior quality. Many 

 of them are breaking pears, while our modern taste v\'ill be satisfied vN'ith 

 nothing in the shape of a pear that is not either melting or buttery. 

 Whence then the deterioration of these three kinds? The late A. J. 

 Downing, who maintained that it was caused by continued propagation on 

 unhealthy stocks and in unfavorable soils, might have found, in the fact 

 that tlie superior quality of these varieties had caused them to be more 

 propagated than others, an argument in support of that view , and I can 

 not undertake to say that it has not at least a portion of truth. But I 

 acccount for the failure of these varieties by their possessing a delicacy 

 of organization rendering them peculiarly liable to injury by fungus 

 growth, in precisely the same way as we find among the new varieties of 

 American grapes those of the finest quality possessing a like delicacy of 

 organization, rendering them subject to the attacks of rot and mildew, 

 from which those of coarser leaf and more vigorous growth, but infe- 

 rior quality of fruit, are free; just as the coarse breaking pears 

 remain uninjured by the causes which have so much injured their 

 compeers. 



This subject is one to which it is difficult to do justice; not only from 

 its breadth, but from the obscurity and intangibleness of the causes 

 which have wrought the eftccts considered, and from the want of accu- 

 rate and extended observation of them, though this deficiency will, no 

 doubt, soon be remedied now that such societies as this and that of Ohio, 

 as well as horticulturists generally, are awakened to its importance. The 

 very idea of cultivation implies such processes, and such only as improve 

 the crops cultivated, and if other results have followed, it only proves 

 that some part of what we have called cultivation has been erroneous, or 

 something has been wanting from it, and it is for us to search out the 

 error or deficiency. There may be those disposed to point to the multi- 

 plication of noxious insects, and the scabby, spotted fruit in localities 

 free from these defects only a generation since, and ask if these are the 

 best results achieved by our horticultural societies, and all the other 

 means of accumulating and disseminating horticultural information, 

 v/hich the activity of our age has set in motion; but I must look upon 

 tliese as only temporary and incidental drawbacks, soon to be overcome 

 by patient and persevering skill. We can not believe that the cultivation 

 which has produced from the harsh and austere crab the delicious North- 

 ern Spy, and others which I might name, if there were need, and from 

 the more harsh and austere and tliorny wild pear such fruits as the 

 Clapp's Favorite and Sheldon, and hosts of others — which has trans- 

 formed the sloe into the Green Gage, and the dry and flavorless peach 

 into a melting and delicious fruit — we can not believe that all this is to 

 go for nothing, and its results all be lost, or be left to the tender mercies 

 of the curculio and canker worm, any more than we can believe that all 

 our civilization is to perish, and the red man re-occuppy our places. 

 Civilization and culture must ultimately triumph over nature without 

 culture. Even the insect tribes will be subdued, else the divine purpose 



