396 



REMARKS ON SOME OF THE NEW PEARS. 



parks or pleasure-grounds, in America, are 

 laid out with more care, adorned with more 

 taste, filled with more lovely flowers, shrubs 

 and trees, than some of our principal ceme- 

 teries and asylums. Is it not surprising 

 that only when touched with sorrow, we, as 

 a people, most seek the gentle and refining in- 

 fluence of nature ? Ah ! many a man, whose 

 life was hard and stony, reposes, after death, 

 in those cemeteries beneath a turf covered 

 with violets and roses ; but for him, it is too 

 late ! Mau}^ a fine intellect, overtasked and 

 Avrecked in the too ardent pursuit of power or 

 wealth, is fondly courted back to reason, and 

 more quiet joys, by the dusky, cool walks 

 of the asylum, where peace and rural beau- 



ty do not refuse to dwell. But, alas, too 

 often their mission is fruitless ! 



How much better, to distil these " gentle 

 dews of heaven" into the young heart, to 

 implant, even in the schoolboy days, a love 

 of trees ; of flowers ; of gardens ; of the 

 country; of home; — of all those pure and 

 simple pleasures, which are, in the after life 

 — even if they exist only in the memory — 

 a blessed panacea, amid the dryness and 

 dustiness of so many of the paths of life 

 — politics — commerce — the professions — 

 and all other busy, engrossing occupations, 

 whose cares become, else, almost a fever in 

 the veins of our ardent, enterprising peo- 

 ple. 



REMARKS ON SOME OF THE NEW PEARS. 



BY SAMUEL WALKER, BOSTON. 



[The following notes on Pears will be pe- 

 rused with much interest by many of our 

 readers. Mr. Walker is looked upon as 

 one of the Chancellors of the Court of Po- 

 mona in New-England, — from his long ex- 

 perience as a cultivator, his excellent judg- 

 ment, and his position as chairman of the 

 Fruit Committee of the Mass. Horticultural 

 Society. Ed.] 



A. J. Downing, Esq. — Sir : The frequent 

 inquiries made by cultivators of fruit, as to 

 the merit of many of the new and other 

 varieties of Pears, which have been fruited 

 in this region during the past season, induce 

 me to oflfer a few remarks for publication in 

 the Horticulturist, as the result of my own 

 experience. 



As a whole, I think the new kinds of 

 pears have been greatly over-rated, or the 

 specimens presented have been but very 

 "untoward" representations of many va- 



rieties, bearing great and high-sounding 

 names. 



The past season may have been unfa- 

 vorable to the production of fine sized and 

 high flavored specimens of some of the new 

 varieties ; but it should be remarked of the 

 kinds known asjirst rate, such for example 

 as the Seckel and Louise honne de Jersey, 

 that the season never renders them worth- 

 less. I shall, therefore, assume the posi- 

 tion, that w^hen a well grown and fully 

 ripened specimen of any new varietjr shall, 

 at the first trial, prove indifferent or third 

 rate, it is not to be expected that it will 

 ever attain the ranlc of a first rate fruit ; 

 such kinds I consider as not worthy of cul- 

 tivation, and shall therefore not notice them 

 in this communication. 



But I know some will say, why do you not 

 give us an account of all — the good — the 

 indifferent — the bad, that we may avoid the 

 worthless? I would suggest to my fruit 



