CROPS AND PROFITS 



the quince; but hardiness, long Hfe, and full 

 crops favor the pear upon its own roots. If 

 a man plant the latter, he must needs wait for 

 the fruit. Moeris puts it very pretdly in the 

 Eclogue: — 



"Insere Daphni, pyros: carpent tua poma 

 nepotes." 



But if a man with only a few perches of gar- 

 den, and with an aptitude for nursing, desires 

 fruit the second or third year after planting, 

 let him by all means— plant the dwarfs. Yet 

 even then his success is uncertain, — particu- 

 larly if he indulges in the "latest varieties." 

 I am compelled to say that I have known sev- 

 eral cautious old gentlemen, who — with a gar- 

 den full of dwarf trees,— have been seen in the 

 month of September, to slip into a fruit shop 

 at the edge of the evening, with suspicious- 

 looking, limp panniers on their arms. Nay, — 

 I have myself met them returning from such 

 furtive errand, with a basket laden from the 

 fruiterer's stock, carefully hidden under their 

 skirts; and I have gone my way — (pretending 

 not to see it all), humming to myself, 



—carpent tua poma nepotes!" 



Want of success in orcharding is more often 

 attributable to want of care, than to any other 



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