Pear- Culture. 4 1 



apple-orchard well into bearing. Then our cultivators are more accustomed 

 to high manuring, and are willing to do full justice in this respect to their 

 pear-orchards. The story that was told of the father who objected to plant- 

 ing an orchard because it took so long to bring it into bearing, but who 

 still lived to eat of the fruit grown by the son on an orchard of his plant- 

 ing, has been fully illustrated in many an instance in pear-culture. Time 

 was, and that within a very few years, when the Bartlett and Seckel were 

 almost the only varieties planted : so that, if a person should say to a nur- 

 seryman that he wanted three trees, you might be fully sure that one would 

 be a Bardett, one a Seckel ; and then he would ask what else there was 

 worth planting, and finally end by buying another Bartlett. Now almost 

 every farmer you meet will talk to you of Beurre this, or Beurre that, and 

 go through and discuss the merits of scores of varieties with all the free- 

 dom of a veteran pomologist. Once the St. Michael, and, later, the 

 Bartlett, were considered the height of perfection ; and it was regarded 

 as downright heresy to dissent from this opinion : now many have become 

 convinced that there are scores of better pears, so far as quality is 

 concerned, than either of the varieties named. 



A great change has been wrought : more pears are raised, more pears are 

 consumed. If prices were high years ago, they are higher now. The sup- 

 ply has hardly kept pace with the demand ; and as prices are thus high, and 

 the supply short, many have been led to enter upon the cultivation of this 

 fruit on a more extensive scale. Years ago, when Manning, Kenrick, and 

 others were raising and importing pear-trees, the cry was, that the market 

 would soon be glutted with this fruit (the same was said of strawberries, and 

 yet the fruit has advanced in price every year) : but we see no such result ; 

 for pears bring better prices now than at the time referred to. If we reason 

 from analogy, we say that what is true of the past will be of the future. It 

 is possible to plant too many pear-trees : but when we remember the extent 

 of our country 5 the great increase of population ; the facilities for transport- 

 ing the surplus fruit to distant markets ; the fact, that, in many parts of the 

 country, pears cannot be successfully grown, — is it probable, that, for many 

 years at least, the market will be overstocked with this valuable fruit ? It 

 has been our desire to see the time when the masses, the poor as well as 

 the rich, could eat pears as well as other fruits ; but they cannot do it when 



VOL. I. 6 



