1892.] TRANSACTIONS. 13 



I know what thinning may amount to, for I have tested it, if 

 only on a small scale. Having once picked from a single pear- 

 tree, by precise count, no less than two thousand (2,000) 

 specimens of Belle Lucrative,* leaving twice too many at that, 

 it is not likely that I should incline to belittle the magnitude of 

 the task devolving upon him who would manage, as he should, 

 an orchard for profitable, and therefore continuous, fecundity. 

 But what if it would pay to do it? All tasks, whether of our 

 own election or set for us, are apt to become wearisome in 

 course of time. Why should the thinning of immature fruit 

 be more repugnant to our refined sensibilities than the hoeing of 

 corn or potatoes? Surely it can not be more tiresome than the 

 weeding of onions, even if not so highly-toned ! Apple-trees, 

 left to themselves, have been known to yield twelve barrels. 

 Does any analogy in Nature go to show that such fecundity can 

 be maintamed without resultant exhaustion, or what in the 

 human subject is significantly termed consumption ! Allowing 

 forty (40) trees to the acre, with five (5) barrels left upon the 

 tree, can you do better with corn or hay, neither of which are 

 possible upon rocky slopes that furnish a kindly home to nut 

 and fruit tree? A careful watch of the prices current, in the 

 great English markets, since first exportation commenced, con- 

 vinces me that selected, sound fruit, carefully packed, cannot 

 be shipped there amiss. And, if wanted in Covent Garden, the 

 foreign demand cannot but advance the home market, that 

 sorely needs an extraneous fillip, and, may I add, an " un- 

 bounded stomach." " Good cultivation and a system of high 

 manuring will always remunerate the proprietor of an orchard. 



* Is there a pear that yields like the Belle Lucrative? All its oftspring 

 inherit the trait to which, in and because of its excess, they are likely to fall 

 victims. That most promising cross, regarded by our local pomologists with 

 pride and hope, Earle's Bergamot, will transmit a noble fruit and perpet- 

 uate an honored name, if it does not succumb to the malignant foe of its 

 female parent, Blight ! a pest which your Secretary dares to assert, despite 

 the whole sickly lore of bacillus, fungus, or microbe, is the consequence of 

 downright exhaustion from over-cropping ! Marie Louise, of first rank 

 whether in England or America, is threatened with a like doom because we 

 will not realize that enough, in the long run, is ])etter than a gorge! 



E. w. L. 



