20 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1889. 



Wilder, and the enforced retirement of Patrick Barry, stands 

 without a peer among living Pomologists, published an article in 

 the Country Gentleman descriptive of " Some good varieties of 

 the Pear." Summed up, they are Anjou, Sheldon, St. Michel, 

 Seckel, Lawrence, Clairgeau, Bosc ; the conclusion being eloquent 

 with praise of the Bartlett. It is curious to find this eminent 

 authority while admitting that the Bosc, for instance, " is one of 

 the best ol all Autumn Pears," yet declaring that "the tree is not 

 a very good grower, and is injured by our severest winters." 

 Here, in Worcester, the Bosc is at last receiving its proper recog- 

 nition as one of the very best varieties. Although late in coming 

 into bearing, its growth is rapid enough to be consistent with 

 maturation of the wood ; and it minds a blast from the North Pole 

 about as much as does the Hickory or White Oak. The writer 

 has often puzzled himself as to the character of the winters in 

 Western New York ; surmising that the contiguity of countless 

 lakes miglit encourage frequent and intense vicissitudes of tem- 

 perature. He recalls to mind that Ellwanger & Barry once thought 

 Cydonia Japonica not much better than half-hardy in the vicinity 

 of Rochester. Yet Horticulture is a success because of the prox- 

 imity of these charming bodies of water ; and the wonder is why 

 the tough wood of the Pear should not be equally proof against 

 extremes of frost, in that favored region, as it has approved itself 

 for more than a century, in the American Bottom at Kaskaskia, 

 among the old French settlements of Illinois ! 



Writino- of the Seckel, — Mr. Thomas calls attention to a disease 

 that it may be hoped will continue local, for the Seckel is a 

 variety of world-wide acceptance that could illy be spared. It 

 has been nearly destroyed, he says, by the same disease that has 

 been fatal to the White Doyenne, or St. Michel : 



" Scarcely a single bushel of good specimens being found in an 

 estimated crop of two hundred bushels. Some years ago the 

 Seckel in this orchard was tine and fair, and was the most profit- 

 able variety in an orchard of the leading market sorts. And 

 during the present year some trees only a few miles distant bore 

 perfectly fair fruit. This disease has puzzled cultivators, and in 

 the experiments we have made Seckel trees subjected to enrich- 



