the improved condition of those whose ingenuity and 

 industry is exerted in affording the means of gratify- 

 ing that taste, and exciting that hberahty. A laudable 

 spirit of competition has been awakened among the 

 practical and amateur cultivators in this vicinity, which 

 I hope will be productive of great and useful results 

 to this community. We have witnessed with no ordi- 

 nary gratification the increasing variety of flowers, the 

 introduction of new and valuable kinds of fruits, and 

 the amelioration of those which have been long fami- 

 liar to us. And among those fruits which we may, 

 without the imputation of a violent presumption, con- 

 sider as original native productions, the Baldwin Ap- 

 ple, theSeckle, Gushing, Wilkinson, Gore's Heathcote, 

 Lewis, Andrews, and Dix Pears, the Lewis or Boston 

 Nectarine, and the Downer Gherry, may be classed 

 among the most desirable of their kinds. 



It is true that the introduction of these several varie- 

 ties of fruits was the result of accident ; this consid- 

 eration does not diminish their value, nor should de- 

 tract from the merit of those under whose auspices 

 they were derived, or introduced to public notice. 



An opinion seems to be entertained by some of our 

 most experienced cultivators, that few if any of the 

 choice varieties of pears, considered by others as na- 

 tive fruits, are indigenous to our soil. That this opi- 

 nion is not w^ell founded, I think has been abundantly 

 demonstrated by the production of some in the in- 

 stances to which I have before referred. Those 

 fruits were discovered in isolated situations, in pas- 

 tures or in the woods, or generally remote from habi- 



