462 



A REVIEW OK OPINIONS ON PEAR TREE BLUMIT. 



reign are mostly cross bred seedlings, and 

 are less hardy, and when reared by the me- 

 thod adopted by Van Mons, very tender. 

 Most of our foreign pears came from coun- 

 tries where the temperature is more equable 

 than here, and are unsuited, in a greater or 

 less degree, to our soil and climate. A 

 " want of constitutional fitness" may exist, 

 to which little or no attention is paid. In 

 England, regard is had to the habit of the 

 variety, whether it is of strong or weak 

 growth, whether hardy or tender, whether 

 it will flourish as a standard or requires the 

 aid of a wall. Inquiries of this kind, though 

 of greater importance to us, variable as our 

 climate is, are seldom made here, A great 

 eao-erness has prevailed to obtain all the 

 new kinds of foreign origin. This might 

 be well enough, provided it does not lead 

 us to overlook our native varieties,* and 

 undervalue their peculiar merits for general 

 cultivation. What is true of the apple, we 

 believe to be equally true of the pear, that 

 its varieties flourish more perfectly in the 

 district and country where they originate. 

 Many of those of high repute abroad, which 

 have come to us, have disappointed our ex- 

 pectations, and are equalled, if not surpass- 

 ed, by many which have originated here, 

 which in some instances have failed to at- 

 tract the attention of cultivators for years. 

 Let the amateur consult his own taste and 

 pleasure, and try what experiments he 

 chooses; but for others' it is more desirable 

 to rear tuch trees as are most hardy, and 

 will produce fair crops of good fruit ; and 

 we believe they would meet with less dis- 

 appointment and more uniform success, if 

 they paid greater attention to the culture of 

 our native varieties. 



* The pasl season has brought into notice here three excel- 

 lent pears, originating in this State : tlie Pratt, and Knighfs, 

 and Alton's seedlings ; the two former of which have been in 

 bearing many years. 



The opinion, ascribing the disease to a 

 stroke of the sun, is of an older date. It is 

 mentioned by Forsyth and in Miller's Gar- 

 dener^s Dictionary. Forsyth says, " there is 

 another source of blight, that sometimes 

 happens pretty late in the spring, and is 

 called fire-blast. This is generally thought 

 to be occasioned by certain transparent flying 

 vapors, which may sometimes take guch 

 forms as to converge the sun's rays in a 

 manner of a burning glass, so as to scorch 

 the plants they fall upon, and this in a 

 greater or less degree in proportion to their 

 convergency. This generally takes place 

 inclose plantations;" and he recommends 

 that a clear healthy situation be selected, 

 and the trees planted at such distances as 

 to give free admission to the air. Prince, 

 in his treatise on trees, remarks, that " the 

 pear is subject to one malady peculiar to 

 itself, commonly called the fire blight, or 

 Brulere, which attacks trees, generally com- 

 mencing at the extremities of the branches 

 and extending downwart^s. This is caused 

 by a stroke of the sun, which extracts the 

 sap from the uppermost branches of the tree, 

 or from such as are most exposed to its in- 

 fluence, with more rapidity than it can be 

 replaced ; or from powerful rays of the sun 

 heating the sap," and he recommends, that 

 the trees should be planted in pear orchards 

 much closer than in those of the apple. 



Observation has established the fact that 

 the disease does not commence at the " top 

 or extremity," and when the trees are in 

 foliage, but manifests itself by black and 

 withered patches of bark upon the trunks 

 or limbs, before a single leaf appears ; and 

 we hardly credit that any " hollow clouds" 

 should be so actuated by malice aforethought 

 as to converge the sun's rays to fall par- 

 ticularly upon close plantations. The fol- 

 lowing objections against this theory are by 



