176 Dwarf Pears. [-^prilj 



stock for the pear, and made really, in the pear cultivation, the same 

 revolution as steam has done for our traveling." 



Well does an editor remark : 



" A more satisfactory answer to the tirade of nonsense which is 

 going the rounds of the papers in reference to the cultivation of 

 ' dwarf pears,' viz., the pear upon the quince, could not well be given. 

 It is to the point, and coming, as it does, from one amply able, after 

 many years of observation in France and Belgium, where the pear 

 has so long been cultivated, as well as in our own country, to give 

 an opinion, will have the influence to which its sound common sense 

 entitles it. 



"It is one of the most serious drawbacks to all progress in horti- 

 cultural art, that those who do not know the first principles of a 

 science shotild attempt to teach those who have made it a life-long 

 study. These attempts to write down the quince stock are a sample 

 of a thousand similar attempts, in the literature of gardening, to 

 assail some of the soundest principles of physiological science and 

 practical art; and it will end, as all similar attempts have, in more 

 thoroughly convincing those who resort to the proper sources of in- 

 formation, how egregiously they have been deceived in following the 

 notions of those who write well enough, or criticise wonderfully wise, 

 but whose practice is as barren as some of the ideas which they at- 

 tempt to advance." 



I also append the following remarks from my address before the 

 American Pomological Society, at Rochester, New York, last 

 September : 



"My experience has so often been solicited by private communi- 

 cation in relation to the pear upon the quince stock, that I deem it 

 proper to introduce it in this connection, with the reasons on which 

 it is founded. Many varieties of the pear thus grafted grow vigor- 

 ously, and bear abundantly. I am aware that an impression has 

 prevailed in the minds of some unfavorable to the cultivation of the 

 pear on the quince stock — an impression which must have arisen 

 from an injudicious selection of varieties, or improper cultivation. 

 Pears upon the quince should be planted in a luxuriant, deep soil, 

 and be abundantlj- supplied with nutriment and good cultivation. 

 They should always be planted deep enough to cover the place 

 where they were grafted, so that the point of junction may be three 

 or four inches below the surface. The pear will then frequently 

 form roots independently of the quince, and thus we combine in the 



