Pear Culture. 83 



an "extraordinary" one), I have not told all I have discovered in refer- 

 ence to pear culture. Some few of my ideas I have given in the essay, 

 and above. Others I have not stated, nor will I now state them. 



Suffice it to say, that the chief of my present difficulties are climatic 

 — the cold winds and rains of spring, and the arid, fungus-producing 

 atmosphere of our summers. Still, my pear culture is very far from 

 being a failure. It is a difficult and expensive process to produce fine 

 fruit here, I admit ; but I liave produced it, and I can produce it, with 

 certainty and success, and I shall not be afraid to compare specimens 

 hereafter with Boston, or Rochester, or any other region, except Califor- 

 nia, in foir, regular culture. Occasionally we know that some person, 

 planting very vigorous young trees, in virgin soil, in some happy spot, 

 in the Middle and Southern States, will come out with a few fine speci- 

 men peai's, the first or second crop on young trees, so fine as to defy all 

 competition by older cultivators, and to astonish all beholders. But if 

 these trees are cultivated on the precious " let-alone system," you never 

 see or hear of the exhibitor aftei'wards. 



The chief object of my essay was to show, or to hint, that perfection 

 in pear growing might be made perpetual. I declared not in dolorous 

 strains that my pear culture was a failure, but that through inexperience, 

 bad pruning, frosts, cold winds and rains, clouds of insects, blasts of 

 fungus, and various other ills, I had arrived at a pleasant hope and 

 belief in success ; and I am now prepared to contest the palm with the 

 wisest pear growers in America. 



Another object of my essay, I confess, was to show up some of the 

 common inflated talk about the ease and profit of pear culture, and to 

 hit, with gentle satire, the advocates of standard pear trees in grass. In 

 respect to these last points, at least, I seem to have met with a good 

 degree of success. This is, philosophically, some satisfaction, for it has 

 been justly said, — 



" How terrible it were to common sense 

 To utter satire which gave none offence ! " 



The writer in the Journal of Horticulture I do not include among the 

 number of those who appear to have been personally touched by my 

 remarks. The comments of the Journal are fair and gentlemanly, as 

 times go, and do not seem to be interested in maintaining any falsit}'. 



