Progress of HorticulUire for 1848. 3 



our tour in western New York, will show the abundance and 

 excellence of the fruit crop generally. Peaches were never 

 more abundant in the middle states, and the only fruits, of 

 which the crop has not been plentiful, in the New England 

 states, are those above mentioned, the plum and the peach. 



Horticulture. 



Under this head, no more important subject has occupied 

 attention during the year than the cultivation of the pear, 

 either as dwarfs or pyramidal trees, upon the quince or pear 

 stock, after the mode so generally adopted in France, and 

 which we have given so full an account of in our Foreign 

 Tour. The economy as well as the beauty of this mode of 

 growth is beginning to be better appreciated, and a greater 

 desire manifested for such trees. We would scarcely sup- 

 pose that we should be understood as recommending this plan 

 for orchard cultivation. By no means. Our remarks always 

 have reference to garden culture, either on a large or small 

 scale; whether ten trees or ten thousand. By planting py- 

 ramidal trees of such kinds as do well upon the quince, and 

 those which do not upon the pear, a much greater crop can 

 be realized, in the end, than from the same ground planted 

 with trees in the ordinary way. This has been proved by 

 foreign cultivators. A writer in the Transactions of the Lon- 

 don Horticultural Society gives the result of his experience, 

 (Vol. VH. p. 213.) He states that the same number of super- 

 ficial feet of wall devoted to the training of pear trees upon 

 the quince and pear stock showed the following results : — 



Four kinds, the Gansell's Bergamot, Brown Beurre, Cras- 

 sane, and Colmar, on the quince, produced 30.5 to 4 on the 

 pear ; dividing the first sum by the latter gives 7.6 as the 

 average in favor of the quince — that is, a fraction over seven 

 pears on the quince stock, to one on the pear stock. We have 

 not room here to give the whole statement of the writer, but 

 shall embody it in an article in a future number; as it is de- 

 cisive as to the advantages of growing the pear on the quince 

 stock. 



Some excellent papers on summer pruning, and the gen- 

 eral management of pear trees, with a view to early fruiting, 



