298 THE EEGENERATION OF FRUITS. 



for our gardeners will not trust to a false system and thus waste 

 time, but by judicious cross-breeding will soon produce hardy 

 Pears, worthy of a place in all our gardens. 



I have noticed, these last few years, a peculiarity in some of my 

 seedling Pears, worthy perhaps the attention of the physiologist. 

 It is this : — the first one or two seasons of a seedling Pear giving 

 fruit, I have found the blossoms to withstand completely the 

 sharp frosts in spring, while seedlings that have been in bearing 

 from five to seven years have succumbed to their effects ; in like 

 manner with the older varieties, I formed a special theory for 

 this as follows, — but I must first mention that I graft all my 

 seedlings on bearing trees, cutting down for the purpose trees of 

 seven or ten years of age — now it occurred to me, that at first 

 the seedling had more of freshness and power in itself, and there- 

 fore withstood the effects of frost ; after a few years there was a 

 closer amalgamation, and the graft had imbibed, so to say, the 

 nature of the stock (which in my experiments has generally been 

 some old variety), and had accordingly lost power. In the spring 

 of 1853, several seedlings that bore fruit for the first time, with- 

 stood the adverse effects of the season, for although all the Pear- 

 trees in their neighbourhood failed to give fruit, almost every 

 blossom on them set, and they bore a full crop ; in the spring of 

 1854, two or three seedlings gave blossoms for the first time, and 

 were in full bloom, in common with the other varieties of Pears, 

 on the 25th of April ; the blossoms on all the Pear-trees growing 

 near the seedlings were killed, but on them scarcely one was 

 injured, and nearly all gave perfect fruit ; the seedlings that had 

 been in bearing several years, suffered, but not to the extent 

 with the other Pears. I was, as I have said, inclined to think 

 the vital energj'^ of the last-mentioned seedlings impaired by the 

 stocks being old tender sorts ; but my theory gave way, for I 

 found that all the new Pears of Van Mons, which I have received 

 from Belgium for some years past, as soon as they have been 

 distributed, and of which I had healthy trees grafted on young 

 Pear-stocks raised from seed, and which new Pears I presumed 

 were of the fifth and sixth generation, and accordingly very hardy 

 in their nature, according to his theory, all failed to give fruit, all 

 the blossoms, of which there were abundance, being killed by the 

 frost ; so that I am still at a loss to account for the blossoms of 

 my two or three seedling Pears being able to withstand eight 

 degrees of frost on the 25th of April, 1854, while those of new 

 hardy Belgian sorts, grafted on young stocks and full of health 



