278 YEARLING PEAR TREES. 



escape the diseases of its parent, and accommodate 

 itself to the influences which affect it in its new 

 position, — as a tender variety produces from seed 

 one perfectly hardy, — does a plant from a hud ever 

 escape, unless through those artificial means which 

 only influence it for the time 1 It retains the dis- 

 eases (perhaps undeveloped and latent), the form, 

 flavor, and texture of fruit, and the habit of growth 

 of the original seedling ; and would always have 

 been a part of it, had it not been for art. No bud 

 of the Bartlett pear, wherever or however inserted, 

 ever produced anything but a Bartlett ; and no seed 

 of the Bartlett ever originated a tree which ivas the 

 same as that variety. 



Some authors have recommended planting pear 

 trees of one year old, because then they might be 

 formed as desired. While this may be best in the 

 grounds of those gentlemen who employ profes- 

 sional gardeners, and have walls to which they wish 

 to adapt an espalier, ■^. yet, in our country, such 

 persons of skill are rare, and our standard method 

 of pruning does not render it important. Trees of 

 two years old, also, are much better in the nursery 

 lines ; but, after three years, or, still better, if trans- 

 planted the second, and set in the orchard the fourth, 

 they will have a strength of constitution which, 

 compared with a tree of one or two years from the 



1 See chapter on Pruning. 



