13 



comes more like those of the old known and approved 

 variety and the fruit advancing to perfection. 



He proceeded to verify his theory and for this pur- 

 pose he collected in his nursery at Brussels eighty 

 thousand plants, consisting of wild stock and trees 

 of every variety, and sowed large quantity of seeds 

 and stones, and upon the fructification of these plants 

 thus obtained, he sowed the first seeds, and so for- 

 ward. Observing that the pear in the production 

 from seeds differed most from the parent tree, he 

 turned his principal attention to that fruit, though he 

 failed not to carry on experiments with the several 

 kinds both stone and seed. 



He was gratified to find that at each generation, 

 the trees produced fruit in a shorter time, that the fruit 

 nearer and nearer approached that of the several best 

 known varieties. That the trees assume the appear- 

 ance of the cultivated tree, that the thorns gradually 

 were replaced by buds and bearing branches, and 

 the process of change steady and certain, and that 

 each step, variation or change seemed to be an effort 

 to become more beautiful and grateful, thus repaying 

 the care of man, though as we know at the cost of 

 a short life. 



The disappearance of the thorn is a beautiful in- 

 stance of the effect of cultivation, changing what in 

 a wild state seems placed upon the tree for its defence 

 into fruit-bearing branches, for now when taken under 

 the protection of man, having no longer any need of 

 arms, it is willing to exert its power to adorn and re- 

 pay its benefactor. Mr Sou they refers to this change 

 in his lines upon the Holly Tree. 



" But when they grow where nothing is to fear, 

 Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear. " 



