40 Pear-Culture. 



cherry may prove but lingering reminders of former prodigality : still, for 

 every position abandoned, we take a new and stronger one. The St. Mi- 

 chael, the Flemish Beauty, and the Glout Morceau pears, may perish ; but 

 we put in such recruits as the Clapp, the Sheldon, the Beurre d'Anjou, and 

 the ranks are stronger than ever before. Our cattle-fairs show improving 

 grades of stock ; our farms indicate slow but gradually-improving culture ; 

 our horticultural exhibitions plainly tell of more energy and skill, and in 

 the quality, and especially the great increase of varieties, leave no room 

 to doubt that the result is a decided advance. But we must gratefully ac- 

 knowledge that which comes to us from the past ; we must be moderate in 

 our expectations, and be patient in struggling with unending difficulties ; 

 and we must be content to know that ours is not to be a finished work ; 

 that we have no slight task in strugglijig agamst a retrograde ; and that it is 

 a high and worthy ambition if we can transmit our blessings unimpaired, 

 adding thereto according to the wisdom and skill which God has given us. 



William C. Strong. 



PEAR-CULTURE. 



The time was, and that within the recollection of many now living, when 

 the varieties of pears were few in number. The St. Michael, St. Ger- 

 main, Catherine, and Orange pears, were about all that were generally cul- 

 tivated in the vicinity of Boston : now there are many collections that boast 

 of hundreds of varieties. Formerly only a few trees were sold, each 

 person buying one, two, or possibly half a dozen : now many a garden 

 or orchard can boast of hundreds, or even thousands, of trees ; while our 

 market-farmers, who heretofore have raised mostly vegetables, or, if fruits, 

 the small ones, are now planting pear-trees in great numbers. Once 

 the apple was the great and leading fruit-crop of Massachusetts, and 

 some orchards gave a yield of a thousand barrels a year : now apples 

 grown in this vicinity are a rarity. In old times, it was considered very 

 difficult and unprofitable to attempt to raise pears, partly because it took 

 so long to bring them into bearing, and partly because they required high 

 cultivation : now these objections no longer obtain ; the dwarf-pear giving 

 fruit at a very early age, and even the standard pear yielding a good crop 

 in about the same number of years that was formerly required to bring an 



