152 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



through a personal experience, which brings with it, in many 

 cases, disgust and retirement from the pursuit. Almost any 

 grower with an experience extending over a period of more than 

 ten years, will say that the fewer the varieties, if well chosen, 

 the greater and more valuable will be the product. 



Among pears, after naming the Bartlett as standing at the 

 head of the list for productiveness and profit combined, we shall 

 be obliged to look in vain to find a second, which in a series of 

 years promises to supplant it, and if we are asked to name half 

 a dozen approaching it in these regards, we shall be apt, after 

 consideration, to class the question among the unsolved conun- 

 drums. Among grapes, the Concord holds the same rank, only 

 if possible, more emphatically. 



To render fruit-growing a successful matter for the country at 

 large, it must be made a success both to the producer and con- 

 sumer. The one should get fairly remunerated for his efforts, 

 while the other should be supplied with an abundance of fruit 

 at a reasonable price. This can only be done by selecting those 

 varieties for cultivation that yield large and uniform crops, even 

 though their quality may not be quite equal to that of others 

 whose single specimens are the apology for pecks or bushels. 

 We should demand quantity as a first essential, and be ready to 

 exchange only when we are sure of a gain in quality without 

 loss in productiveness. 



Another important obstacle in the way of success is to be 

 found in the lack of knowledge among cultivators of the wants 

 and requirements of their trees or vines ; a knowledge that 

 comes only from long and thoughtful experience and observation, 

 and cannot be acquired from books or otherwise only in a partial 

 degree. Dame Nature is apparently capricious. One day she 

 will, and the next she won't. Now she promises to tell us a 

 secret, and directly we find tliat she has not done it. She is ever 

 talking in riddles, and just as we get ready to put our finger on 

 a point we find that it has elud^l our touch. The infinite 

 variety of soils and conditions surrounding each plant, renders 

 it extremely difficult — in most cases, impossible — to solve a 

 problem of culture so that it will stay solved. The second ex- 

 perience contradicts the first, and the third is opposite to both. 



There are, however, some general considerations that are not 

 to be overlooked. A plant, like an animal, lives and grows by 



