ESSEX SOCIETY. 77 



first-named was raised in Rowley, and is a winter fruit, com- 

 bining great beauty, productiveness, large size, fine flavor, and 

 late keeping properties. The other is a late fall apple of highest 

 order; it originated in Bolton, and is a large oblong red fruit, 

 of excellent flavor, and a good bearer. No better evidence can 

 be given of the congeniality of the soil of our state for the apple, 

 than the natural production of such fruit as the Baldwin, Min- 

 ister, Hubbardston Nonsuch, Mother, Roxbury Russet, Danvers 

 Winter Sweet, Aunt Hannah, and the Ben of Reading. 



Selections from an Essay on the Cultivation of the Pear. 



BT W. D. NORTHECTD. 



Stocks f 07' the Pear. The different stocks used for the culti- 

 vation of the pear, are the quince, white thorn, ash and pear, or 

 free stock. The quince and free stock are most common, al- 

 though on the ash, the pear grows well, and is less liable to be in- 

 jured by the frost in the spring, as the sap rises later. The quince 

 stock answers well for a very small garden, or when the culti- 

 vator wishes to obtain a great variety, and but few of a kind, 

 as the tree is always a dwarf; but in large gardens the free 

 stock is generally preferred. The quince is short-lived, not 

 usually bearing more than ten or twelve years, and is subject to 

 attacks from the borer. Of free stocks, seedlings are much to 

 be preferred to suckers. The latter are generally deficient in 

 roots, are longer in getting started, are less healthy, and will, 

 when growing, throw up suckers from the roots. 



Seeds from natural pears are more sure to vegetate, and pro- 

 duce hardier stocks, than those from grafted fruit. It is impor- 

 tant, also, to select the seeds of large pears, as the stocks from 

 them are more thrifty, than those from the seeds of small ones. 

 A friend informs me that, several years since, he planted a seed- 

 bed, one half with seeds of small, and the other half with seeds 

 of large pears, the soil in each part of the bed being of equal 

 richness ; and that the result was, the first year the trees from 

 seeds of large pears were thrifty and grew well, while those 



