PROPAGATION OF FRUITS. 53 



rence ; and in Winter, Vicar of Wakefield, and in some 

 localities, Glout Morceau, and Easter Beurre, although I am 

 of opinion that we are yet without a really good Winter pear. 

 Pears generally bear grafting well, and will soon repay all 

 outlay. They should be grafted a little earlier than apples, 

 and in the same way. 



GRAFTING AND IMPROVEMENT. 



The address of J. R. Williams, Esq., before the Kalamazoo 

 Agricultural Society, Michigan, contains much good sense. 

 The following remarks on the ease with Avhich every man may 

 improve the quality of his fruit are applicable to the latitude 

 and meridian of other places besides Western Michigan : 



"As it is with animals and vegetables, so it is with fruits. 

 You can have stunted, astringent, crabbed fruits, or the most 

 delicious. The precaution to send your neighbor's boy to snip 

 a shoot from a fine tree, while you are stopping to decide the 

 affairs of the nation with him — a few minutes taken to slide 

 it under the bark, while you are waiting for a meal at home, 

 will transform a useless shoot into a valuable tree, that shall 

 furnish pleasure and nutriment to generations of men. A few 

 minutes improved now and then, which would be otherwise 

 idled away, will surround your dwelling with a grove which 

 will prove of the greatest utility and delightful embellish- 

 ment. I know men say they have no time, yet I have always 

 observed that men who make this excuse have plenty of time 

 to lounge at the tavern — plenty of time to run after some 

 mountebank or charletan — plenty of time to litigate with a 

 neighbor. No ! man ! plant the tree. It will grow while you 

 sleep. Bud it. Graft it. Nurse it, and it shall gladden the 

 sight and please the palate of people yet unborn, and you shall 

 have a memorial of your existence, springing from the sod, 

 when you shall repose beneath it. 



Some five or six years ago I found on the place where I 

 reside some scrubs of natural fruit. The tops of my trees, 

 my neighbors said, were too large to graft. But they were 

 grafted with considerable labor. My predecessor might have 

 budded or grafted each with a single germ, and saved me nine- 



