THE CANADIAN HOETICULTRIST. 9 3 



Believing as I do tbat the general cultivation of this fruit will be 

 80 great a benefaction, and add so much to the comfort of the people, 

 I am prompted to write this paper, that if possible I may induce some 

 without delay to make a beginning in cultivating this unequalled fruit. 



I will send my paper of "Fig Culture," which tells how to grow the 

 trees and how to cure tlie fruit, &c., to any address. 



KIEFFEE'S HYBRID PEAR. 



There is probably no cultivator of pears who has not experienced, 

 in greater or less degree, feelings of disappointment and discourage- 

 ment arising from the destructive effects of that mysterious disease 

 known as the jpear hlight. Many an enthusiastic pear culturist has 

 had his enthusiasm changed into disgust by this "black-death" in the 

 pear orchard. The honored President of our associatioji could indite 

 a jeremiad most lachrymose, if he would, by a simple recital of his own 

 woes in this respect. The writer once called upon a gentleman who 

 resided near Lockport, N. Y., and told him that he had come to see his" 

 beautiful pear orchard, of which he had heard so much said in its praise, 

 and to see the specimens of fruit on trees of so great a number of 

 varieties. He replied, "my pear orchard is gone; if you have read 

 Byron's Sennacherib you will have the best description I can give you 

 of my pear orchard; a month ago it was indeed a beautiful sight, iaow 

 it is a blackened ruin ; 



'The angel of death spread his wing on the blast. 

 And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed.' " 



Reijiedies almost numberless have been prescribed for this plague, 

 but they all fail; theories as many have been invented to account for 

 its presence, but none of them satisfy all the conditions of the problem; 

 the only way of escape seems to be in the discovery or creation of a 

 race of pear trees not subject to the blight. 



For many years the Chinese Sand Pear has been grown in this 

 country mainly as a curiosity, its fruit being esteemed as of no value, 

 though Downing says it is good for cooking. This variety is remarkable 

 for its very vigorous habit of growth, its large glossy foliage, and its 

 entire immunity from blight. But no one of our hybridists seems to 

 have taken it in hand with a view to raising a new race of blight- 



