Cultivation of the Soil. 71 



large and well grown, is an excellent fruit. When small, it is per- 

 fectly worthless. T. G. Yeomans, of Walworth, N. Y., who has 

 been eminently successful in its cultivation, and obtained thirty-five 

 dollars per barrel for it, has found high culture of vital importance, 

 and has remarked that when the specimen does not weigh over 

 four ounces, it is no better than a raw potato ; and this, we think, 

 has generally been found true. There is no question whatever that 

 this fine pear, as well as many other fruits, has been placed on the 

 rejected list by some planters for want of good management and 

 proper cultivation. 



Good cultivation and thinning the crop cause all the difference 

 between those superb specimens of the pear which often grace the 

 extended tables, and fill the vast halls of our finest fruit exhibitions, 

 and such miserable fruit as we sometimes see borne on the grass- 

 grown, weed-choked, mice-gnawed trees of the slipshod farmer's 

 grounds planted out with hardly the expectation, but rather with a 

 sort of dim hope that they would grow and take care wholly of 

 themselves. 



One of the best things that a horticultural or pomological society 

 could do, would be to place conspicuously on exhibition a collection 

 of such fruit as might be raised with every advantage resulting from 

 good culture and judicious thinning ; and another collection beside 

 it with all the marks of small size and scabbiness which might be 

 expected from utter neglect. One collection should be marked, 



" FRUIT RAISED UNDER THE EYE OF VIGILANCE AND INDUSTRY :" 



the other labelled, " FRUIT GROWN UNDER NEGLECT." 



Cultivation is the more important, because it is not commenced 

 and finished in a day, but needs constant attention for years ; and 

 in ordinary practice it receives greater neglect. For, of the thou- 

 sands of trees which are every year transplanted in all parts of the 

 country, the assertion may be made with safety, that more are lost 

 from neglecled after-culture, than from all other causes put toge- 

 ther. 



To purchase and set out fine fruit-trees of rare sorts, in a baked 

 and hardened soil, whose entire moisture and fertility are consumed 

 by a crop of weeds and grass, might very aptly and without exag- 

 geration be compared to the purchase of a fine horse, and then per- 

 petually to exclude him from food and drink. 



Here is the great and fatal error with a large portion who attempt 

 the cultivation of fruit. We may not incorrectly divide these into 

 three classes : 



i. Those who, having procured their trees, destroy them at once 



