90 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



from seed, I urged you " to plant the most mature and perfect 

 seed of the most hardy and vigorous sorts." 



Additional experience has confirmed my faith in this doctrine ; 

 for where seeds have been obtained from cross fertilization of 

 healthy and strong growers, the progeny has partaken of the 

 same cliaracter ; but where the parents have been of slender 

 habit, or slow growth, the offspring have exhibited correspond- 

 ing qualities. If this fact may be relied upon, though the 

 process of artificial impregnation be difficult and tedious, yet 

 pursued with skill and perseverance, it will ultimately secure a 

 rich reward. We should not be disheartened by the poor suc- 

 cess of Duhamel, or of Mr. Knight with his hybridized pears ; 

 for the failure of the latter is attributable to the selection of 

 inferior varieties, from which his seedlings were raised. In 

 reliance upon natural fertilization, I would still encourage the 

 continual planting of the seeds of choice varieties of all kinds 

 of fruit, in the belief that new and valuable varieties may thus 

 be obtained. By these various processes, we shall have con- 

 tinual accessions to our collections of such choice fruits as the 

 Beurre Clairgeau, Beurre d' Anjou and Doyenne Boussock pears. 

 Let nothing discourage you in this most hopeful department of 

 pomology. Go on, persevere : — 



" Give new endeavors to the mystic art, 

 Try every scheme, and riper views impart ; 

 Who knows what meed thy labors may await ? 

 What glorious fruits thy conquests may create ? " 



These are triumphs worthy of the highest ambition, con- 

 quests which leave no wound on the heart of memory, no stain 

 on the wing of time. He who only adds one really valuable 

 variety to our list of fruits is a public benefactor. I had rather 

 be the man who planted that umbrageous tree, from whose 

 bending branches future generations shall pluck the luscious 

 fruit, when I am sleeping beneath the clods of the valley, than 

 he who has conquered armies. I would prefer the honor of 

 introducing the Baldwin apple, the Seckel pear, Hovey's 

 Seedling strawberry, aye, or the Black Tartarian cherry from 

 the Crimea, to the proudest victory which has been won upon 

 that blood-stained soil. 



