ANNUAL MEETING AT LEXINGTON. 141 



i 



only are left to sigh in the balmy breezes of a Missouri winter. Lesson 

 — Plant only on land that has been cultivated several years. 



LESSON VII. 



Pears. — Who is not delighted with a pear orohard? Who weep 

 not over "years of wasted life" in goowing one? I've seen 81,000 

 melt into thin air, and over 400 promising trees have blighted my fond- 

 est hopes. I planted 100 dwarfs ; watched with a mother's tenderness, 

 and pruned and trained with a father's solicitude. What a growth! 

 What banks of snowy bloom ! Bees reveled in their sweetness ; young 

 fruit nestled in the glistening foliage. 



Each year's growth was cut back one-half — I had the secret of 

 " the blight." Alas ! alas ! 



1 never loved a dear gazelle 



To glad me with its soft black eye, 

 But when it came to know me well 



And love me, it was sure to die. 



And now, one only — one lonely — healthy greets me. Of 300 stand- 

 ards, less than twenty are able to bear. Five are in good health ; the 

 strongest being a winter Xelis — its feet in the damp, within fifteen feet 

 of a hog wallow, while all others are struck with malaria, notwithstand- 

 ing they are higli and dry. Lesson — Let the pear business severely 

 alone unless you have warm soil, sandy subsoil, and thoroughly under- 

 drained. 



LESSON VIII. 



Plums. — Observing that the largest groves and best wild plums 

 grew around the head of moist swails, in the edge of the prairies, I had 

 just the place for a grove. So near the hennery that the best woman 

 in the world would have to feed her chickens — cheap curculio destroy- 

 ers — right under the trees. Out went $40, and in went Gages, Impe- 

 rials, Lombards, Damsons (my wife dotes on Damsons, as I do on dam- 

 sels), and a few Wild selects. How anxiously I watched those trees as 

 they reached their branches heavenward, spread their snowy blooming- 

 heads in the sunshine, scattered sweet perfume on the balmy air at 

 evening, curclioed and — died; the Gages first^ the Imperials second, 

 Lombards third. Damsons tottering in decrepitude, while the wild ones 

 flourish as green bay trees, yielding an annual crop of perfume, curcu- 

 lio, sprouts and vexation. 



