FRUIT committee's REPORT. 91 



rect, the influences of the great variations of temperature in this climate, 

 with a range of 110° or more in the thermometer, so far as they can be 

 guarded against or controlled. Should these and such other conditions as 

 will in each case suggest themselves to the judicious cultivator be complied 

 with, and especially with a careful selection of varieties, there is reason to 

 expect as fliir remuneration for labor and capital in the cultivation of the 

 pear as in the culture of any other fruit. 



As in agriculture, so in horticulture, an exclusive devotion to any one 

 particular species of cultivation cannot be considered prudent or judicious, 

 and the cultivator should adopt the raising of pears as one of the branches 

 of his business, and not let it occupy his whole attention. 



Opposite views to those here presented, with respect to the character of 

 the pear tree, the profits attending its culture, and its adaptation to this part 

 of the country, have no doubt many and able advocates, who sustain their 

 opinions by facts and arguments that cannot be wholly denied or confuted ; 

 personal interests dictate the wish that such should be found in the end to 

 be sustained by experience ; but, as at present, such are believed to be 

 erroneous, and that the expectations expressed are too sanguine to be ever 

 realized, the expression of an honest opinion of a different character has 

 been felt here to be a duty. 



One proof, by which some who maintain that great profit is to be easily 

 derived from the cultivation of pears, sustain their opinion, is the great 

 price occasionally received for a few dozen of the fruit, — the sum obtained 

 from the product of a single tree, and the price that they bear in the market 

 when offered in considerable quantities. 



Now such facts are, it is believed, as arguments in fiivor of a general and 

 extensive cult'wntion of the pear, entirely fallacious, and, as facts bearing 

 upon this question, of no importance whatever, indeed, that when analyzed 

 they will have an opposite tendency to that intended. Price is the result 

 of supply and demand, and is high or low according as one or the other is 

 in excess. The high prices occasionally obtained, then, proves the inade- 

 quacy of the supply, and when the vast number of pear trees planted in 

 this vicinity during the past fifteen or twenty years is considered, that the 

 supply is inadequate proves perhaps as much the precariousness of the crop 

 and the want of success that has attended the cultivation, as it does any- 

 thing else. Besides, let the supply be what it may, the quantity to be sold 

 at extravagantly high prices is very limited, and to commence an extended 

 cultivation under the expectation of obtaining such prices, would not be 

 much more judicious than for a farmer to devote himself to a crop that, 

 unless at famine prices, would not afford a remuntration. 



It will of course be understood, that what is here said with regard to the 

 profit attending the growing of pears, is intended to have reference only to 

 cases where that is made a business demanding the employment of capital 

 and labor, and not to instances of a few trees of some hardy variety or 

 varieties demanding but little care ; and, where the expense is merely the 

 first cost of the tree, and perhaps the annual value of the land they occupy, 

 leaving nearly all their produce to be considered as profit. And so, too, it 



