Notes and Gleanings. 37 



cultivation in the eastern part of the United States, but, in France, s free from 

 spots and blemishes, as well as large and handsome. As an offset to this, per- 

 haps, pears generally take a higher flavor in Massachusetts. And the conclu- 

 sion at which I arrived was, that, so far as the perfection of the fruit was con- 

 cerned, pears could be with equal success cultivated in both regions ; but 

 whether, as respects the cultivation of the trees, with less liabilit)' to injury, anti 

 greater certainty of a crop, an advantage of a better climate does not accrue to 

 European cultivators, I am not prepared to decide. 



And so, too, with respect to apples, that in many parts of Europe, in Eng- 

 land, France, and Germany, are raised in large quantities. What I have said 

 in regard to pears, applies, I think, to them also. It certainly would be difficult 

 anywhere to find apples superior to the Washington, Northern Spy, or even the 

 Baldwin, as 1 have seen them in Massachusetts ; and yet I have eaten a Colville 

 Blanc in France when I thought it equal to them. I am not fond of apples, and 

 do not often eat them ; but when I have, occasionally, it seemed to me that in 

 Europe they were generally equal in quality to those met with in Massachusetts, 

 as they certainly were in size and beauty. Whether they are raised with more 

 or less success, I cannot say. 



I have said nothing of grapes, because I supposed no one would deny that 

 they are vastly superior, and are raised with infinitely more success, in Europe, 

 than they can be in Massachusetts, or, indeed, anywhere in the United States, 

 unless it may be on the Pacific coast. Indeed, in the north-eastern part of 

 America, fine grapes cannot be raised at all, except in houses ; and attempts at 

 cultivating the coarse, hardy varieties, are only partially successful. In France, 

 delicious grapes, with large berries and bunches, are cheap and abundant, of 

 both the white and purple sorts, — of the former, Chasselas, Muscat, and 

 Frontignan varieties; and of the latter, different kinds, — the most common 

 being what I took to be Black Hamburgs, but called Frankenthals by the 

 dealers. 



I know that these comparisons are merely the result of an individual judg- 

 ment ; that they are no proof ; and as such they are not ofiered, but are given 

 merely to show one of the grounds that with me has led to the conclusion, that 

 the ditTerent kinds of hardy fruits can, taking them in the aggregate, be culn- 

 vated with most success in Europe. 



Besides the advantages growing out of a better climate, there is another that 

 cultivators of fruit in Europe possess over those of the north-eastern parts of 

 the United States ; and that is a comparative freedom from noxious insects de- 

 structive to vegetation. I have never but once seen trees whose foliage had 

 , been injured, as I thought, by insects ; and those were but a few apples, I be- 

 lieve, in a garden in the extreme south of Europe. Insects that commit such 

 devastation in Massachusetts — caterpillars, cankerworms, (Sic. — are rare, if 

 they are to be found, in Europe ; at least, I have never seen them, or observed 

 any marks of their ravages. Joseph S. Cabot. 



Paris, Oct. is, 1868. 



