373 



A FEW WORDS ABOUT SICKLY PEAR TREES. 



than it serves to stimulate to the accurate 

 notice and correct appreciation of facts. 

 But I am always too long. And tendering 

 you, as ever, my most hearty good wishes, 

 I remain, respectfully yours, 



J. B. Turner. 



Illinois College Dec. 25, 1S49. 



P. S. I must, after all, add that the 

 gentleman above named, T. Chamberlain, 

 Esq., invited me last August to examine 

 an apple tree, which he had at that time 

 full of the most beautiful ripe fruit. He 

 calls it the Orange apple, from its yellow- 

 ish colour and round shape. It is ripe 

 about the first of August ; and he says it 

 has elsewhere been called the " Horse," or 

 "House," or "Hoose apple." But I think 

 it is not the common Horse apple of the 

 south, from descriptions I have seen of the 

 latter. This Orange apple answers well 



in general to the common descriptions of 

 the Fall Pippin, except it is rather larger, 

 and more yellowish, and is ripe much 

 earlier. It is quite as much better than 

 our best early apples, as the Newtown Pip- 

 pin is better than the third class of winter 

 apples. Can any of your readers tell us 

 its proper name ? It seems to be known 

 only in a few locations in the south and 

 west; but all who have ever seen it, I find, 

 speak of it with the greatest enthusiasm, 

 and justly, too. The tree is a good bearer, 

 and a fine regular grower; and at the time 

 I saw it, about the tenth of August, its load 

 of large, fair, yellow fruit reminded me of 

 nothing so much as of the fabled apples of 

 Hesperides. I had at the time plenty of 

 apples in my house; but threw them all 

 aside and bought of him as long as his 

 lasted ; his were so much better. 



A FEW WORDS ABOUT SICKLY PEAR TREES. 



BY AN OLD DIGGER. 



I find, on looking about my garden, talking 

 with fruit-growers and looking through the 

 pages of your paper, that it is an undenia- 

 ble fact that a good deal more difficulty is 

 experienced in cultivating the pear than any 

 other of the popular fruit trees. 



The time was, indeed, when pear trees — 

 great, strong, lofty trees, too, though the 

 fruit was rather chokey — -grew around every 

 farm-house, bore cart-loads of fruit annu- 

 ally, and were looked upon as able to 

 " stand more hard knocks" than even an 

 apple tree. Longer lived the pear tree cer- 

 tainly is by nature ; and as standing vene- 

 rable proofs of this, I refer you to the Endi- 

 cott pear tree, near Salem, and the Stuyve- 

 sant pear tree, in New- York. As both of 

 these trees are above two centuries old — by 



veritable records — it is not worth while to 

 spend time in proving that the pear is, na- 

 turally, a long lived tree. 



But, in fact, natural pear trees, that is to 

 say, the chance seedlings of the common 

 pear, that spring up by the sides of lanes 

 and fences, are as hardy and as great bear- 

 ers now as they ever were. What then is 

 the matter with all the sorts whose tender- 

 ness our fruit-growers groan over? 



Is it not owing to the delicate constitu- 

 tions which these foreign varieties, bred in 

 a more regular climate, have, and which 

 makes them peculiarly alive to our great 

 excesses of heat and cold? 



Is it not true, in rich and deep soils, 

 where delicate trees are forced into a sappy 

 condition, when the limbs are too full of 



