variety fixed upon to cross witli. This is done simply by finding some flowers in full 

 bloom, with the pollen perfect, and placing them on the blossoms under the muslin 

 cover, closing it immediately, and tying it securely, so as to prevent the ingress of bees. 

 To those who have inclination or leisure, this occupation will be found of much inter- 

 est; and to those who have not, the chance method will be equally so. 



The theoiy and practice of the late Van Mons, which for so many years has made 

 such a noise on the Continent, has been given in American works on fraits; but I may, 

 I trust, be allowed to repeat it in as few words as possible. He commenced by sowing 

 the seeds of some hardy, inferior Pear, and, as soon as the trees bore fruit, he sowed 

 the pips from them, waiting again till the second generation bore fruit, from the pips 

 of which he raised trees, and so on for several generations. He gave out to the world 

 that by this method he raised all his best Pears, and that those of the last generations 

 were nearly all good. This seems to be in unison with the well-known fact that culti- 

 vation brings on amelioration ; but his assertion that by thus raising successive genera- 

 tions his last seedlings became so fruitful as to bear some years earlier than the first, or 

 those raised in the ordinary way, was a delusion, brought on, I suppose, by enthusiasm. 

 That some out of his many thousands of seedling Pears would bear fruit some years 

 before others, I have no doubt ; but that it resulted from the system, was an error. 

 Let any one of your readers raise seedlings from the old Swrni's Egcj Pear, and at the 

 same time raise some from one of Van Mons' Pears — say Prince Albert, which, as 

 being one of his late generations, ought to give seedlings wonderfully prolific, it will 

 be found that the chances are equal about the seedlings bearing fruit when young. 

 I am inclined to think that those from the very old Pear the Sivari's Egg will bear 

 fruit before the very new Pear Prince Albert. I am also inclined to think that his 

 system of amelioration by successive generations, although on paper attractive and 

 interesting, was slow and uncertain, for the following reason. Some few years since, I 

 was traveling in Belgium, and paid a visit to the garden of the late Major Esperen. 

 I learned that he had no system of raising Pears, but that he sowed -seed according to 

 his fancy, and trusted to chance. I was surprised to find that he had raised, in a com- 

 paratively small garden, and out of a small number of seedlings, such Pears as Joseph- 

 ine de Malines, Bergamotte d'' Esperen, Fondante de Noel, Fondante de Malines, and 

 some others. I afterwards saw the vast collection of Van Moxs' thousands of large 

 trees raised from seed after his system, and among them all it may be safely said that 

 there was not one variety to surpass, or even equal, the two first-named varieties raised 

 by chance. To chance also, and not to this much vaunted-of system, we owe such 

 Pears as Marie Louise, Glout Morceau, Beurre Ranee, Beurre d''Aremberg, and, above 

 all. Winter Nelis; so that we may console ourselves with the idea that chance is veiy 

 liberal, and the system of Van Mons not so ; for, after a whole lifetime devoted to it, 

 it failed to give him five Pears to surpass the above, or one to equal the last-named. 

 I remember feeling assured, when first I heard Van Moxs talk of his theory, that it 

 was not tenable ; for, if amelioration was progressive in seedlings raised in successive 

 generations without crossing, and if in like manner fertility was increased by it, the 

 Peach orchards in America would give fruit all perfect in quality, and of wonderful 

 fertility, — for the Peaches in some of the States are raised, generation after generation, 

 the stones. What wonders the fortieth generations of Poach trees ought to be ! 

 should bear fruit even the first year from sood. Among the hundreds of varieties 



