FEW FIXED PRINCIPLES. 217 



one hundred and eighty a day for each bird. I believe we sold 

 $145 worth this year, and they ate more than that while we were 

 picking ; and how many they spoiled before, that they didn't 

 eat, I don't know. There were four rows of late trees, and 

 from five trees at the ends of each of those rows we did not pick 

 a cherry. The robins came and cleaned forty of those trees. 



Dr. Nichols. I wish simply to say that it is a matter of 

 regret that we cannot arrive at a greater number of fixed prin- 

 ciples which will guide us in all cases. I have noticed in the 

 discussion upon fruits, that, after all, we seem to be able to carry 

 away with us but very little that will be of any practical benefit, 

 individual experience is so diverse. I have a plantation of pear 

 trees numbering some three or four hundred, some twenty years 

 old and some three or four ; and I have endeavored to observe 

 pretty carefully both my own trees and those of my neighbors 

 in the northern part of the county ; and some peculiar and 

 interesting experiences have come up in the course of my con- 

 nection with those trees, showing the contrary influences which 

 govern men in their judgment as regards trees. For instance, 

 year before last, in one plantation, where there were ten pear 

 trees of ten different varieties, the trees were apparently in very 

 good condition in the autumn. When I mulched round them 

 with manure in the fall, I left them in very good condition, as I 

 supposed. In the spring I found that every tree of the Stevens 

 Genesee variety took the blight, and every one was entirely 

 destroyed. Of course my prejudices were immediately raised 

 against the Stevens Genesee. The past winter I found that 

 precisely the same influences had been at work upon the Flemish 

 Beauty. Every one of that variety in this plantation was 

 destroyed in this way. The bark became black, there was a 

 little black spot upon each leaf, which gradually extended, the 

 leaf turned yellow, and the trees died, and I was obliged to dig 

 them all up ; so that my prejudices were immediately raised 

 against the Flemish Beauty. What will happen next year, I 

 don't know. So that, as regards fixed facts in the culture of 

 fruit, it seems to me we have not many of them. There are, 

 however, two facts that are forced upon my mind very particu- 

 larly with relation to pears ; first, that the pear must have a 

 deep soil ; and, secondly, protection. I am inclined to think 

 that pears will not flourish and bear fruit if you are deficient in 



28 



