^68 



THE FRUIT3 OF AMERICA. 



Thk Fruits of America, containing a selection 

 of all the varieties cultivated in the United States. 

 By C. M. HovET. Boston, Little & Brown. 

 [Published in 8vo. numbers, once every two 

 months, at $6 per aniiuin, or $1 per number.] 

 There are few persons, not directly con- 

 versant with the subject, who are aware of 

 the importance which fruit culture has as- 

 sumed in the United States, within the last 

 ten years. It is no longer confined to well 

 kept gardens or enclosures of very limited 

 area. Hundreds, and even thousands, of 

 acres of fruit trees for market, have \^ry 

 recently been planted, in the middle and 

 western States. Even of the finer kinds of 

 pears, such is the facility with which they 

 may be grown in some favorable localities, 

 that extensive orchards are now coming for- 

 ward. A very intelligent grower in the in- 

 terior of this State has, at the present mo- 

 ment, a thriving young orchard of fifteen 

 acres composed of the most select varieties 

 only of this fruit. And so much more easily 

 may tbe finer autumn and winter pears be 

 grown in some parts of New-York, where the 

 soil is deep, and the climate ameliorated by 

 the influence of her broad lakes and rivers, 

 than in any part of Europe, that we are 

 confident they will, in a few years, form as 

 regular and profitable a commodity of ex- 

 port to Covent Garden market, London, as 

 our Newtown pippins do at the present mo- 

 ment. 



The success of such volumes on Pomolo- 

 gy as Mr. Kenrick's Orchardist, and our 

 Fruits and Fruit Trees, has prepared the 

 way for works of a more expensive charac- 

 ter. The field which a coloured work of 

 this kind must occupy, is necessarily very 

 different from the former works. Its high 

 price, (added to the long time which it will 

 require, at the rate of twenty-four plates 

 annually, to give even a very moderate se- 

 lection,) will keep it out of the reach of any 



but the more wealthy amateur, or the pro- 

 fessional grower, to whom such works are 

 in a good degree necessary. 



But, while a work of this kind, from its 

 being confined to the hands of a few hun- 

 dreds, instead of many thousands, can not 

 have the influence, on the country at large, 

 of a cheap and more popular work, it is a 

 very acceptable addition to the library of 

 the American pomologist, since its plan 

 enables its conductor to give much more 

 elaborate portraits and descriptions than 

 can be comprised in a fruit manual. 



The style and execution of the first num- 

 ber of Mr. Hovey's work, just issued, are 

 excellent, though the plates are not pro- 

 perly coloured (by hand) like the English 

 works, but chromolithed, or printed in colour, 

 a cheaper mode of producing the eflect of 

 coloured engravings. 



Each number of the work is to contain four 

 fruits. The descriptions are given at full 

 length, with the synonyms. The fruits in 

 the present number, viz : Beurre D' Arem- 

 berg\ Glout Morceau, and Van Mons'' Leon It 

 Chrk pears, and Baldwi^i apple, have al- 

 ready been so often described, and are so 

 well known to most of our readers, that they 

 will not of course expect to find much that 

 is new. 



Mr. Hovey, however, evinces an odd and 

 amusing pertinacity and disregard of all 

 authorities, in his still cherished opinion of 

 the form of the Glout Morceau, pear. He 

 still persists in making the figure of the 

 latter fruit more like that of Buerre d'Arem- 

 berg than itself — (though it has not escaped 

 us that the stalk is a little more slender than 

 the original authentic outline in his Maga- 

 zine.) 



The truth is, the normal form of this 

 pear, which varies a good deal, is quite 

 different from that of (he D^ Aremberg. It 



