REMARKS ON LEAF BLIGHT. 



Before closing this ai-ticle, which has now been extended beyond my original design, 

 permit me earnestly to recommend the practice of raising new varieties from seed, a prac- 

 tice which I am happy to inform you, is becoming quite general in this region. When this 

 branch of cultivation shall be more perfectly understood, I entertain no doubt but we shall 

 be able to produce varieties rivaling in excellence the most celebrated foreign fruits. In 

 support of these views, we might name among the instances which have been crowned with 

 success, the efforts of Mr. Francis Dana, of Roxbury, who has the past year, 

 from promiscuous seed, fruited three varieties of pears of good character — two of 

 Avhich are entitled to particular commendation; one an early, the other a late sort. The 

 Messrs. Hovbt have also presented this season, a native variety of great beauty, and of 

 fine quality, which promises to rank among the best of our early pears. 



Unfortunately, the passion for new fruits, has placed so many under cultivation, that Ave 

 are scarcely able to do justice to all. Instead of transferring, at once, scions of 

 foreign varieties to healthy and mature trees for trial, our conclusions are too often drawn 

 from imported trees, which are not fully established, or perhaps not adapted to the stock 

 upon which they have been grafted. 



During the past two years, we have witnessed the disastrous effects of unfavorable at- 

 mospheric influences. These are chiefly beyond our control; but cannot the other ills 

 which vegetation is " heir to," be provided against.'' Cannot the tendency to deteriora- 

 tion, now so generally complained of, be arrested, and the pristine beauty and perfection 

 of those fruits which were once the pride of our gardens, but now remembered only as 

 " out-casts," be restored, and perhaps maintained? Science has wrought wonders in 

 other departments of knowledge, and whj^ should it not aid the pomologist, as well as 

 the manufacturer or the mechanic? Doubtless it can; but our efforts must be governed 

 by the laws of nature — for, if there are scientific principles upon which terraculture is 

 founded, then no practice which is not based on these principles, can be depended upon 

 with any certainty for success. 



Your readers will excuse this digression, but in view of your being about to address the 

 good people of the Empire State on the great subject of Agricultural Education, I cannot 

 refrain from expressing the hope, that not only New-York, but other states, will take up 

 this matter in earnest, and establish such systems of instruction as shall enable the culti- 

 vator, whether in the garden or in the field, to take his place by the side of the most fa- 

 vored class in the progress of improvement, for which our age is so distinguished. 



Marshall P. "Wilder. 



Boston, Jan. 10, 1851. 



REMAKES ON LEAF BLIGHT. 



BY n. E. HOOKER, ROCHESTER, N. Y. 



Tuis disease, which has by some been mistaken for the Jire blight, and by others deem- 

 ed worthy of so little attention, that few notices of its presence, or hints for its destruc- 

 tion, have appeared in j'our magazine, is, I am persuaded, productive of more injury to 

 nurserymen and those amateurs who undertake the propagation of their own pear and 

 plum standards, than the genuine fire blight. 



I propose, therefore, to state some of my views on the subject, hophig that brother nur- 

 serymen, at least, will give the readers of the Horticulturist the benefit of their exi)eri- 



