OBTALNING NEW SEEDLING VARIETIES. 51 



vigorous for budding. Tlie winter is often fatal to 

 seedlings in the bed, by heaving them out of the ground. 

 They are therefore packed in sand in the cellar, or are 

 buried, top and roots, in close beds, until spring, for 

 preservation. 



OBTAINING NEW SEEDLING VAKIETIES. 



Tliese are the result of accidental or intentional 

 hybridization, or of the natural tendency of the seed to 

 change, both in the character of the fruit, and the 

 habit of the tree. It may be assumed that, although 

 seedlings of pears resemble the parent, yet that no 

 two seedlings, of cultivated varieties at least, produce 

 fruit exactly alike. 



The fruit of some of the natural seedlings — that is, 

 tliose not produced by complex hybridization, and 

 found growing without the aid of art — often reproduce 

 their variety by their seed ; or, at least, plants of almost 

 perfect similarity. But there is ever a constant ten- 

 dency in the most luscious and melting varieties to 

 return to the wild state. Yan Mons, of Belgium, who 

 expended a life-time in experiments on the variation 

 of pear seedlings, held the theory, that " wild pear 

 trees, in a state of nature and in their native soils, 

 always reproduced seed without perceptible variation ; 

 but that, as soon as the original circumstances are 

 altered, and the seed is planted in a new climate or 

 soil, change commences." Ilis theory is at this time 

 familiar to all, and need be but briefly alluded to here. 

 The pear selected for its seed must have travelled, 

 one step at least, away from the acrid crab. It is 

 essential moreover, that it should not be of the higher 



