GET THE BEST. 87 



that those trees have arrived to their full perfection of bearing, 

 and that he will derive as much benefit from the trees as a sub- 

 sequent generation, probably. Many of the old varieties, that 

 have been in cultivation for a hundred years, would decline 

 before a young man arrives at the common age of man, and are 

 not worth cultivating. Some think that any variety may be 

 cultivated indefinitely ; but it is not so. A tree has its youth, 

 maturity and decline. That is the law of nature, and if you 

 plant these old varieties they will decline before you do. There- 

 fore, let the young man be sure to get a comparatively young 

 and thrifty variety to plant, give the tree good cultivation, and 

 he will soon begin to reap his reward in dollars and cents, aside 

 from the profit and interest there is in the cultivation of fruit. 

 If you plant seeds and raise seedling trees, you may get some- 

 thing that is better than any variety we have, although, in that 

 case, you will get a great many common or fair api)les where 

 you get one good one. In regard to pears, I will mention that, 

 some fifteen years ago, I planted the seeds from the best pears 

 that I could obtain, and I have about thirty seedlings now grow- 

 ing. They are thrifty, and some have come into bearing. 

 Some of them produce very fair fruit, but not equal in quality, 

 perhaps, to many varieties you have. But when you plant a 

 seedling tree and get a fair pear, you have a tree that will last 

 a century ; whereas these grafted trees of the old varieties grow 

 for a few years, and you get the fruit, and then they die before 

 you think of it. From my experience, I should recommend a 

 young man to plant the seed of the best varieties of pear ; let 

 the tree stand where it comes up, never cutting the tap-root, 

 and it will last for centuries. I measured a pear-tree growing 

 upon our light soil about two years ago, and found that it was 

 six feet and four inches in circumference. It never had any 

 cultivation at all. It was a seedling tree, and bore the Button 

 pear. I have had grafted trees under cultivation these five and 

 twenty years, and with all the cultivation I can give them, some 

 of them show signs of decline now ; whereas, some seedling 

 trees that I have had planted perhaps twenty years are still very 

 thrifty, and some of them have attained ten inches in diameter, 

 and look as though they would grow for a century to come. 

 Therefore I think it is very important for a young man who is 

 going to set out an orchard to be careful and get the best trees ; 



