86 STATE HOETICULTUBAL SOCIETY. 



for the many, and makes for the best interest of agriculture at large* 

 It is better that many should acquire a competence than that one 

 should make fortune, and it is one of the kindest influences of Provi- 

 dence, that the most wholesome and delicious of human food is within 

 the reach of the most humble and impoverished of mankind. 



As our population increases, the orchard, the garden and the dairy 

 will more and more take the place of the grain-field. There is no fear 

 that we shall want bread, and there is no fear that we shall have too 

 much fruit. 



The Le Coiite Pear and the Blight. 



Writing to tlie "Florists' Exchange," J. H. Hale says : 



Ten or more years ago, when the Le Conte pear first came into 

 popular favor and was extensively advertised through the South, the 

 one claim above all others urged in its favor was that it was entirely 

 blight-proof — the disease never having been seen on any trees of this 

 variety, while other varieties, even in like situations, had suffered 

 severely. For this reason many nurserymen used the Le Conte stocks, 

 which can be readily grown from cuttings in the South for the propa- 

 gation of other varieties upon them. Some four or five years ago in 

 Southern Georgia and Northern Florida, the writer saw trees of this 

 variety suffering seriously from the blight, and later it was seen to a 

 limited degree in the orchards farther north; and now comes a report 

 from nearly all sections of the country where the Le Conte is growing 

 or .other varieties grafted upon it, that this destructive disease is doing 

 greater damage to this variety than all others combined. A tremendous 

 wave of pear-blight has within the past few weeks swept over nearly 

 all the Le Conte orchards in the South ; and so again it is demonstrated 

 that no variety is entirely free from this destructive disease, and that 

 until science comes to the rescue and teaches us what the disease is 

 and how to control it, we must expect serious losses. It is also 

 reported that the famous Idaho pear, which nurserymen are propagat- 

 ing so extensively, appears to be more subject to the blight than any 

 variety yet tested in the East; whether it is entirely free from the dis- 

 ease in its original home I am not able to state at this time. One things 

 that may account for the spread of this disease among Idaho trees is 

 that a very large number of them during the past two years have been 

 propagated in the South upon Le Conte stocks: therefore it may be 

 possible that the disease originates in the stock rather than in the 



