THE PEAE. 35 



of valuable varieties, when the fifth generation was reached 

 the trees began to bear in the third year after planting, 

 and nearly all had attained great excellence. To use Van 

 Mon's own words, " I have found," says he, " this art to 

 consist in regenerating in a direct line of descent and as 

 rapidly as possible an improving variety, taking care that 

 there be no interval between the generations. To sow, 

 to resow, to sow again, to sow perpetually, in short to 'do 

 nothing but sow, is the practice to be pursued, and which 

 cannot be departed from ; and this is the whole secret of 

 the art I have employed." 



The constant springing up of fine new varieties of 

 fruits in the American States is, as the author of The 

 Fruits of America admits, a confirmation of the Van Mons 

 theory, for while the colonists, who had taken pains to 

 bring with them seeds of the very best English fruits, 

 were doomed to see a grievous falling off in the degene- 

 rate produce resulting from their planting, the seedlings 

 proving little better than wild trees, in the course of 

 years this ebbing tide has turned again, and borne trans- 

 atlantic growths with onward flow to heights of excel- 

 lence beyond what had ever been attained by the British 

 trees from which they are descended ; and had the pro- 

 cess of continually rearing new generations of seedlings 

 been uninterruptedly followed, the good result might per- 

 haps have been much sooner arrived at. Assuredly the 

 Belgian's theory was founded on an observance of natural 

 laws, and in practice his system proved a great success, for 

 having himself raised no less than 80,000 seedlings, from 

 these, and many thousands of others reared by his disci- 

 ples in Belgium and elsewhere, an immense number of new 

 varieties of great excellence have been obtained, among 

 which the palm is usually given to the Buerre Diel. The 

 method, however, is attended with several disadvantagesj 

 for being avowedly an enfeebling process, the trees so / 

 grown are usually of weak habit, and apt very soon to 

 decay or become unhealthy ; and being, too, almost abso- 

 lutely artificial products, they often require an unin- 

 termittent care and culture never needed by the hardy 

 children of Nature, so that some of the Flemish pears 



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