Improved varieties of JVeio York Fruit Trees. 93 



seem also inclined to adopt the theory of Mr. Knight which we 

 have heretofore stated. We can assure them, malgre, that in the 

 valley of the Hudson, in the same parallel of latitude as that city, 

 these old varieties flourish with all their primitive luxuriance, un- 

 impaired by the long lapse of years which the European pomol- 

 ogists imagine has already put an end to their existence.* The 

 beurre's, the Bergamot, the St. Michael or Virgoulouse, some 

 of the oldest known varieties of pears, produce annually large 

 crops of handsome and delicious fruit. The English Golden 

 pippin, which INIr. Knight has benevolently consigned to oblivion, 

 is here every year loaded with apples beautiful enough to have 

 grown in the garden of the Hesperides; and, indeed, these old 

 kinds are now more vigorous than some of the newer varieties, 

 which, probably, from causes we have just stated, are not so 

 healthy in appearance as we could desire. Do we then believe 

 that the finer varieties of fruit have generally no limited period 

 of duration? Certainly not. On the contrary, we are confident 

 that from the general carelessless of those persons who propa- 

 gate fruit trees, the heedlessness with which they propagate in- 

 discriminately from every thing which comes in their way, and the 

 extreme difficulty with which a disease once introduced into the 

 system of a tree is expelled from any portion of it, even by 

 grafting on the most healthy stocks, that almost every variety 

 will in time degenerate and become extinct. But a knowledge 

 of these facts will enable us to guard against these evils, by prop- 

 agating only from healthy individuals and upon healthy stocks, 

 whereby the duration of any variety may be prolonged to an in- 

 credible extent. It will teach us, also, the fallacy of bringing 

 into general cultivation any variety, however new or promising, 



* How shall we reconcile Mr. Kenrick's remarks, in the American Or- 

 chardist, p. 28, with those contained in his article in our present num- 

 ber in respect to these fruits ? In the above work he states, that " those 

 varieties, therefore, which no lonoer succeed with us, may j^et continue 

 for a while to flourish in the middle regions of the Union, and especial- 

 ly in the interior, beyond the limits and influence of the cold easterly 

 sea-breezes from the Atlantic, which, rising with the diurnal appear- 

 ance of the sun, visit us so regularly and constantly at stated seasons." 

 These remarks were probably made in consequence of the excellence 

 in which the varieties of pears he alludes to were, and yet are, produced 

 throughout nearly the whole extent of the country, except within a few 

 miles of Boston. But the climate of the whole valley of the North 

 river, he says, is " another and much more severe and destructive 

 climate than ours at Boston." The frosts of summer are more com- 

 mon and destructive; yet all the pears he so unhesitatingly calls outcasts, 

 are produced there ui as great perfection as they ever were on the 

 original trees of these varieties. Certainty this docs not agree with 

 Mr. Knight's statement, which Mr. Kenrick has adopted. It cannot be 

 the cold latitude of Boston which causes these fine fruits to be unwor- 

 thy of cultivation. — Cond. 



