12 More about l/ic Jj/ff 'Incurs. 



profusion, and the Boston Public Garden is full of flowers, and no one has been 

 found doing any serious damages as yet, nor will they in the future, if the public 

 is taught to understand that whoever robs or injures the plants and shrubs, is actually 

 doing a greater harm to himself than to any one else. The argument of fair play is 

 more likely to affect a promiscuous crowd than any force. There are always some 

 sneak thieves who will despoil anything, if they can thereby fill their own pockets ; 

 but the sneaks are few, and can be soon detected and punished, and every honest 

 person is a policeman who will be eager to preserve public property, just in propor- 

 tion to its beauty. 



The introduction of flowering tender plants into public grounds, will certainly 

 make greenhouses for the winter preservation important, but the cost of green- 

 houses can well be borne, if we thus secure in every town a place where the winter 

 beauty of plants can be seen and enjoyed, and thus give the people an additional 

 means of enjoyment. 



More About the Big Pears. 



THE following letter was received a short time after our visit at Mr. Leighton's 

 place, which gives some further description about Mr. Leighton's orchard : 



Editor Horticulturist : After your departure this afternoon, it occurred to 

 me that in our hasty walk through ray orchard that some, or at least one variety was 

 overlooked, and that one was the Seckel. It grows much larger here, perhaps, than 

 in any other locality on the Atlantic Coast, and has proved itself healthy as a stand- 

 ard many years with my neighbors, and so far with me both as standard and dwarf, is 

 vigorous. 



I think I was imprudent in speaking so highly of Clapp's Favorite, for I have 

 fruited it only two yeans as dwarf, and not at all as standard, and do not know when 

 it will come in as standard. 



The impression south of me is somewhat unfavorable as to its success, and I would 

 not like to mislead on my slight experience. 



I also forgot to speak of the White Doyenne (known thirty years ago as Virgalieu 

 in New York), has fruited three years without producing a single cracked specimen. 



A pear tree near my barns, and which I remarked, was described in The Horti- 

 culturist, is Poire de I'Assomption ; but I was mistaken, it is described in Tilton^s 

 Journal of Horticulture, and the pear trees shown you as Souvenin du Congress. 

 I refer you to vol. 24, No. 278, page 235, Horticulturist. 



I enclose a short article which I wrote a year ago for the Southern Planter and 

 Farmer, in answer to the numerous questions asked about my method of raising such 

 large pears : 



I plant my dwarf trees twelve and a half feet apart each way (perhaps 12^ by 14 

 feet would be better for Duchesse d'Angouleme), digging my holes about three and 

 a half feet square and three feet deep. My land is overlaid with stiff" blue clay 

 from three to seven feet in depth, under which is sand. 



In order to make underdrainage perfect, I bore with a post auger a hole from the 

 center of the three feet hole down to the sand, and fill said auger hole with oyster 

 shells, adding about a bushel in the bottom of large hole. I then add about six 



