A Stonj-and-a-Holf Cottage. 34 J 



lates the habit of the pear. The old sorts proved incapable of 

 affording- the requisite nutriment to sustain the pear for a 

 lengthened period. For small gardens these will doubtless 

 answer a good purpose, as a person will be enabled to get 

 the full value of his pear tree during his own life ; but for 

 the farmer and the marketer they are not only valueless, but 

 sources of anxiety from the extra cultivation required to 

 keep them healthful and fruitful. The time has arrived when 

 a larger share of attention should be directed to standards. 

 Winter pears are meeting with ready sales at highly remu- 

 nerative prices, and the supply is not adequate to a hundredth 

 part of the demand. The growing of winter pears will ultimately 

 become a source of great profit to those who properly engage in 

 it, and standard pear trees, in consequence, must and will super- 

 sede the dwarf where pears are cultivated on an extensive scale. 

 The leaf blight which has afflicted pear seedlings is, in my 

 opinion, becoming extinct, the recent climatal changes having 

 had the effect to produce healthful and tenacious foliage. This 

 fact will render resort to the quince stock unnecessary ; hereto- 

 fore it has been almost imperative. My individual experience 

 with dwarf pear trees has been of a nature to induce me 

 to discontinue their cultivation, except for the purpose of ascer- 

 taining the quality of a new fruit at the earliest moment. For 

 this purpose and for a kitchen garden they are indispensable, but 

 for orchard cultivation they are very inferior to standards. 



A STORY AND A HALF COTTAGE 



FRONTISPIECE. 



The exterior appearance of a cottage may prepossess the pass- 

 er-by without any exposij;ion of the decorator's art. Brackets and 

 cornices are promoters of beauty in the right situation, but the 

 great expense which attends their use, in most instances, deters 

 the man with limited means from putting them into requisition. 

 Some people are possessed of a singular notion that a house can. 



