74 FRUIT GARDEN. 



from their seed. If I could get my lease of life renewed 

 for twenty or thirty years, I would devote my atten- 

 tion to the subject, and I would cross our best native 

 varieties with the best table and wine grapes of Europe. 

 We live in a great age. Di-sooveries are daily made 

 that confound us, and we know not -where we shall 

 stop. We are told of experiments in mesmerism, as 

 wonderful as the grinding-over system would be ; but I 

 fear the discovery will not be brought, to perfection in 

 time to answer my purpose, and I must leave the sub- 

 ject with the young generation. 



"I have heretofore wanted faith in the doctrine of 

 French horticulturists, that to improve your stock of 

 pears you must not select the seed of the finest fruit, 

 but of the natural choke pear. I am half converted to 

 their views. The Catawba is clearly derived from the 

 common Fox grape. In raising from its seed, even 

 white ones are produced, but I have not seen one equal 

 to the parent plant, and in all the white down on' the 

 under, side of the leaf, and the hairs on the stalk, com- 

 mon to the -wild Fox grape, ai?e abundant." 



The same g-entleman, in pointing out the evils of 

 following practices in the United States which are 

 highly advantageous in other countries, observes : — 



" In som.e parts of Europe, where their summers are 

 cool, they find it necessary to shorten the ^leading 

 branches intended to produce the next year's crop, and 

 thin out the leaves, and head in the short branches, and 

 fully expose the fruit to the sun and air to insure its 

 ripening. This method in our hot climate is often 

 -highly injurious to the plant and destructive to the 

 fruit. If the heading-in of the leading shoots be done 

 early in the season, the fruit buds of the fallowing year 



