186 AMERICAN GARDENER. 



France that are fifty years old, and that are still 

 in vigorous fruitfulness. There is a good deal in 

 climate, to be sure; but, I am convinced, that 

 there is a great deal in the stock. Before I quit 

 the subject of stocks, let me beg the reader never, 

 if he can avoid it, to make use of suckers, par- 

 ticularly for an aftjile or pear-orchard, which 

 almost necessarily is to become pasture. Stocks 

 formed out of suckers produce suckers ; and, if 

 the ground remain in grass for a few years, there 

 will arise a young wood all over the ground ; and 

 this wood, if not torn up by the plough, will, in a 

 short time, destroy the trees, and will in still less 

 time, deprive them of their fruitfulness. Besides 

 this, suckers, being originally excrecences, and 

 unnaturally -vigorous, make wood too fast, 

 make too much wood; and, where this is the 

 case, the fruit is scanty in quantity. "Haste 

 " makes waste" in most cases; but, perhaps, in 

 nothing so much as in the use of suckers as 

 stocks. By waiting a year longer and bestowing 

 a little care, you obtain seedling stocks; and, 

 really, if a man has not the trifling por- 

 tion of patience and industry that is here re- 

 quired, he is unworthy of the good fruit 

 and the abundant crops, which, with proper 

 management, are sure, in this country, to be the 

 reward of his pains. Look at England, in the 

 spring! There you see fruit trees of all sorts 

 covered with bloom ; and from all of it there some- 

 times comes, at last, not a single fruit. Here, 

 in this favoured country, to count the blossoms is 

 to count the fruit ! The way to show our grati- 

 tude to God for such a blessing, is, to act well 

 our part in turning the blessings to the best 

 account. 



