130 The Dwarf Pear Controversy. [March, 



Humbugs, and his sad tale of disappointment with them, my heart 

 sympathizes with him in his sad disappointment. 



But knowing him to be a philanthropist, and that he has the good 

 of the pear-growing community at heart — excepting those rascally 

 nurserymen, ichu pile on so exceedingly, when ahout to sell a brother 

 seedsman Dwarf Pears — I know it will be cheering news to him to 

 hear that others have done better than himself, and that their expe- 

 rience diifers from his. I know his case is a bad one, and I do not 

 expect to be able to say anything to alter his opinion after the great 

 Jeffries — that notorious scribbler on all subjects — has pronounced 

 against them ; anything said by any one else — and particularly a nur- 

 seryman — will have little weight with him. 3Ir. Stoms seems to in- 

 timate that the authority of Jeffries is indisputable. It would 

 liave been of vast benefit to the present generation, had Jeffries 

 lived two-hundred years ago, for according to his doctrine, it is folly 

 to attempt to grow pears at all, either as standards or dvrarfs. He 

 makes it appear that we have been very unprofitably employed, in 

 trying to grow pears for that length of time ; now had Jeffries 

 lived at the time pear culture began in this country, he could, and 

 of course would, have taught our forefathers the uselessness of the 

 attempt, and a vast amount of money and labor might have been 

 saved. Jeffries proves nothing so clearly, as that he is writing at 

 random on a subject that he but poorly understands, and that he has 

 purchased a few Dwarf Pears of some nurseryman, which, from 

 some cause — perhaps bad culture or an improper soil, or bad selec- 

 tion of varieties — have not succeeded ; and therefore, he feels it his 

 duty to rail against Dwarf Pears and the Nurserymen. Had Mr. 

 Stoms given the other side of what Dr. Ward has said of Dwarf 

 Pears, it would put a diflfcrcnt face on the thing, but he has care- 

 fully avoided it. Any one reading his article, and not Dr. Ward's, 

 would be led to suppose that Dr. Ward had met with disastrous 

 failures in their cultivation, but that is not altogether so ; with some 

 kinds, and on proper soil, he has been very successful ; and cautious 

 cultivators ought not to condemn those varieties that do succeed well, 

 because others do not. Dr. Ward points out a case of the utmost 

 importance in regard to the proper soil for the Dwarf Pear ; he says 

 that in one part of his grounds, they proved a decided failure, al- 

 though they received the richest culture and the most care, while 

 those removed to a distant part of the field, succeeded well. The 

 cause is to be found unquestionably, in the fact that the soil in the 



