Descriptions of Select Varieties of Pears. 339 



establishment of a large Nursery, I have the pleasure of being 

 your sincere friend, and most obedient servant, 



H, A. S. Dearborn. 

 Hawthorn Cottage.^ Roxbury^ July^ 1849. 



Our thanks are due to Gen. Dearborn for his valuable sug- 

 gestions, and more particularly for calling the attention of our 

 botanical friends to the fact of the Faccinium Fitis-Idas^a 

 growing so near our city, and yet so long escape the attention 

 of botanists. 



It is certainly somewhat surprising, that our native shrubs 

 and plants are not better known, and more extensively intro- 

 duced to our gardens. Mr. Mcintosh, of Dalkeith, the editor 

 of a Scottish journal of horticulture, in the latest number 

 (dated July 4,) received by the last mail, in noticing the 

 April number of our magazine, and our article on a selection 

 of shrubs for gardens, justly remarks, " that it will be perused 

 by the English reader with some surprise. We, in Britain, 

 look upon the hardy deciduous and evergreen shrubs of 

 America as forming one of the grandest features in our gar- 

 dens, and are apt to picture to ourselves how magnificent 

 must be the dressed grounds of an American country gentle- 

 man, supposing them to be planted with the numerous splen- 

 did trees and shrubs with which that country so much 

 abounds." We only hope, for the credit of the taste of our 

 countrymen, that such a neglect of the growth of our own 

 trees and shrubs will not long exist. A few such papers as 

 those of Mr. Russell's and Gen. Dearborn's, cannot fail to 

 awaken our amateurs and nurserymen to the importance of a 

 more extended cultivation of our indigenous trees, shrubs, and 

 plants. — Ed. 



Art. II. Descriptions and Engravings of Select Varieties of 

 Pears. By the Editor. 



The severity of the past winter, in the vicinity of Boston, 

 was particularly injurious to pears : and they seem to have 

 suffered fully as much in their blossoms as the peach trees ; 

 for, in many localities, there is an abundant crop of peaches 



