104 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



decay. Too much air will cause shrivelling. Too much heat 

 will cause premature ripening of the fruit. But when winter 

 approaches there is but little difficulty in the management of a 

 fruit-house, if it is sufficiently protected from frost. 



Those who expect to keep their fruits in good preservation, 

 without special care in gathering, storing and watching, will 

 most assuredly be disappointed. We therefore lay down the 

 following rules as indispensable to success : — 



Sound and perfect fruit. 



Cool, pure air and exclusion of light. 



Control of temperature and moisture. 



Constant and careful supervision. 



METHODS FOR PRODUCING NEW NATIVE FRUITS. 



And now let me call your attention to what are the best 

 methods for producing new and valuable native fruits. The 

 great loss and disappointment which cultivators have experi- 

 enced in the importation of European fruits, not adapted to our 

 country, suggests the importance of producing new and valuable 

 American varieties from seed. Another reason for producing 

 new seedling fruits, is to replace those which may be lost by the 

 deterioration of varieties. 



However we may theorize in regard to this matter, it must be 

 admitted, from the practical point of view, that some fruits have 

 so declined as to render it absolutely necessary to replace them 

 with new varieties. And what has been true in the past will be 

 so in the future. Witness certain kinds of pears in our own 

 day, — the St. Germain, Crassane, Brown Beurrd, White Doyenn^, 

 and others, — once so excellent : where are they now ? Some of 

 these are occasionally to be seen on the virgin soils of the West 

 and South ; yet for the great majority of locations they will con- 

 tinue to be worthless. And even on these new soils, where they 

 now flourish in their pristine excellence, we have reason, judg- 

 ing of the future from the past, to anticipate that no long time 

 will elapse before this decline will reach these now favored re- 

 gions. Within less than a generation, the pears alluded to 

 flourished throughout Western New York, as well as, in their 

 early history, on the propitious soils of France. And even 

 among the more modern pears we notice — as, for instance, in 

 the Beurrd Diel and Flemish Beauty — signs of decadence. 



