278 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



assimilates itself to various soils,) there is scarcely one of the 

 fine sorts that does equally well with all cultivators, some 

 requiring a rather cool and retentive soil, others a warm, sandy 

 loam. There are also many pears with regard to which it is 

 difficult to know what peculiar clement is wanted for successful 

 growth ; for example, the Dix, which cracks or blasts in many 

 soils. On some land the fruit of the Napoleon and St. Ghislain 

 is astringent. The analysis of soils which has been made from 

 time to time, has never as yet given us any thing reliable on 

 this matter, and we are inclined to think, with Professor Mapes, 

 that " the laboratory and the microscope are both incapable, 

 as yet, of ascertaining why two substances, containing the same 

 constituents in precisely the same relative proportions, should 

 so widely differ in their functions that one will fertilize a plant, 

 and the other will not; that one can be absorbed by organisms, 

 both vegetable and animal, while the other cannot."* In order 

 therefore to have good fruit from the fine varieties, more atten- 

 tion should be given to ascertain, if possible, what varieties do 

 best in our own soil, and to cultivate for a principal crop those 

 only. This we apprehend to be now the great desideratum in 

 the culture of this fine fruit. Many individuals are inclined to 

 possess a great number of varieties irrespective of the soil in 

 which they place them, and in consequence of this we rarely, 

 if ever, meet with an orchard of pears that, as a whole, is remu- 

 nerative to the owner. If a cultivator should have in his grounds 

 the four varieties of winter pears — the Beurre' d'Aremburg, 

 Winter Nelis, Lawrence, and Lewis, and he should find that 

 any of these had done well for a series of years, those only 

 should be multiplied, and the same course should be pursued 

 with the summer and fall varieties. 



Grapes. — As to the oft-repeated question — " What are the 

 best varieties of grapes for out-door culture, and whether there 

 arc any among the numerous varieties now offered for sale 

 superior for general cultivation, and that will ripen in this 

 county earlier than the Isabella, Diana, or Concord ?" this is a 

 question difficult to answer, unless we now have them in the 

 new hybrids, exhibited at our last show by E. S. Rogers, of 

 Salem, among which were at least two varieties, superior, in 



* Working Farmer for June, 1859. 



