TEAR CULTURE. 



One raorninfr, in perambulating the streets of Havana, we saw a part of a cargo 

 of Cliinanicn walking in the rear of a Spaniard, who was mounted on horseback, 

 with a whip and a sword. Their time had been purchased, and they were on the 

 way to a plantation, to complete their term of service. A healthier or merrier set 

 of men it would be difficult to remember; they were very thinly clad, without 

 shoes or stockings, some wearing the queer native conical hat of China, and others 

 bare-headed. Each one carried a strip of Canton matting, about six feet long and 

 two wide, which was their only requirement for a bed 1 Very few had any other 

 baggage, though a dozen or so possessed a few clothes tied uj) in a strij) of mus- 

 lin as large as a small handkerchief. We followed them to the steamlioat that 

 was to convey them across the bay. At the landing there was a short detention, 

 waiting for the boat, and our Americans, seeing their jolly faces expand with a 

 laugh, commenced a dumb conversation with their fingers, to which the Chinese 

 replied most merrily, neither party of course understanding that more was meant 

 than a recognition. Arrived on the sugar estates, the policy of the employer has 

 taught him the necessity of kindness, and the most considerate give them a good 

 long rest before setting them to work. As we said before, the problem has yet 

 to be solved as to the policy of this great introduction of Asiatics, but their 

 present condition will be better understood among us from the facts above stated. 



They are now so numerous in Havana, as to create no remark. The gang above 

 described, excited little or no attention as they quietly walked through the streets 

 — not half so much, in fact, as an elderly Virginia gentleman, who made his ap- 

 pearance, daily, in the full dress of the times of Thomas Jeff"erson : shortish, 

 narrow blue-coat and metal buttons, outside boots, and a Cuba hat! He was the 

 observed of all observers, the Havanese not knowing from what country he could 

 have emauated ! 



PEAR CULTURE. 



MR. HOVEY GIVES IT UP!— THE QUINCE-STOCK. 

 BY QUERIST. 



I have been a looker-on in Venice, Mr. Editor, during the well conducted little 

 joust we have had regarding pear culture on the quince, and have not a little 

 applauded the course of the Horticulturist, which seems to me to have had but 

 one object, to elicit the truth. You have said throughout, "the dwarf for the 

 garden, the standard for the orchard." Some cultivators and editors who had 

 committed themselves and their nurseries to the quince stock, took fire and 

 threatened war and devastation, blight and destruction, to all who did not think at 

 least that dwarf pear trees were salable. I acknowledge I was doubtful which 

 had the best of the argument, and trembled sometimes for the good periodical 

 which admitted such arguments as Dr. Ward's, and when I saw the following, 

 signed "Editor," in Hovey's Magazine, I was frightened, for I considered the field 

 in possession of the dwarfs, if somebody did not come to the rescue. I had 

 no idea, then, that the call from the battle field would come from Boston ! But 

 it has 1 ! 



At page 500 of vol. xxii. of Hovey's Magazine (1856) will be found the an- 

 nexed little bit of criticism. It has since been referred to by the Editor as embrac- 

 ing his decided views, as, in fact, to use his own language, " an answering of all 

 the ohjectiojis which have been made to trees of this kind, and do not deem it 

 worth the time and space we might occupy to enter into a defence of dwarf 



