CRITIQUE ON THE FEBRUARY HORTICULTURIST. 



457 



all events, the difficulties complained of 

 will be overcome after a while. The case 

 is not desperate, by any means. 



A feio words about sickly Pear Trees. — 

 The man who has a dozen pear trees can 

 v tv well wisp them up with straw; but he 

 who has five hundred or a thousand to do, 

 will find it an expensive matter, besides 

 coaxing the mice and other vermin into the 

 bark and about the roots by its continual 

 falling off; for I have known mice girdle 

 trees as fast in summer and autumn, as in 

 winter. As just mentioned, with regard to 

 Professor Turner, work the trees high up 

 to the branching point, and let the stocks 

 be the hardiest and thorniest seedlings. 

 The top will thus shade itself, and be its 

 own preserver. Who ever knew a natural 

 hedge-grown pear to be sun-struck, or dis- 

 eased by any natural cause ? 



I fancy that the chief cause of our troubles, 

 in the finer kinds of the pear, is the practice 

 of our nurserymen to work their buds into 

 any kind of the same stock where they 

 would grow, irrespective of its fitness, pro- 

 ducing the same bad results that excessive 

 "in-and-in breeding" among cattle has 

 often done with our stock farmers. The 

 Endicott and Stuyvesant, named by "Dig- 

 ger," as well as the original Tyson and 

 Seckel trees, prove this ; and the enormous 

 French seedling pear trees on both sides of 

 the Detroit river, quite two hundred years 

 old, and some of them yet in vigorous bear- 

 ing, would appear to settle the question. 



In Van Mons' account of his cultivation 

 of the pear, to seek out his celebrated new 

 varieties, it appears that he selected the 

 seeds of the best pears for planting, and 

 then selected the seeds of the best and 

 most delicate fruits produced by them, and 

 so on, in succession, — thus enfeebling and 

 refining them in constitution, ( for why not 

 a tree have constitutional enfeeblement as 

 Vol. iv. 32 



well as a calf or a sheep ?) as he progressed, 

 until the very last limit of vitality was at- 

 tained, and which was in fact an inevitable 

 necessity, to produce the exquisitely refined 

 fruits that he did produce. Now, beyond 

 all question, if he had at every successive 

 planting of the seed used only the seeds of 

 hedge-pears, or wildings, he never would 

 have succeeded in producing a tenth or a 

 fiftieth part of the good pears which he 

 did ; but it is quite probable his stocks 

 would have been infinitely more hardy and 

 enduring. And the fact that our best native 

 American pears have been from chance seed- 

 lings, of vigorous growth, but in all proba- 

 bility of legitimate admixture from the pol- 

 len of good varieties, no way controverts 

 this supposition ; only we have as yet dis- 

 covered, among all our chance wildings, 

 but a very few first rate fruits. I shall be 

 happy to hear the views of " Digger" on 

 this subject. 



Design for a Southern Country House. — 

 A very good one, and in excellent charjic 

 ter for its locality. But, my good si t ; 

 should have the roof steeper — " a quarle r 

 pitch" — at least. Such a roof, of shingles, 

 (and that is what they use at the south,) 

 will last twenty to forty years, depending 

 on the material, and look quite as well, 

 while the flatter one — say one-sixth to one- 

 fifth pitch — as you have it, will only last 

 one-third to one-half the time. For a south- 

 ern house, too, I would throw the chimneys 

 into the outside walls ; as the additional 

 heat they would otherwise give to the rooms 

 is of little consequence, and thus give more 

 space to the interior, and look quite as well 

 in the general effect. 1 hope that in your 

 proposed work on " Country Houses," you 

 will pay more attention to southern archi- 

 tecture ; for in no part of the United States 

 has so little study been given to rural em- 

 bellishment of houses as there. And how 



