Notes and Gleanings. 361 



them ; and though Dr. Houghton thinks it will pay to obtain fine dessert-pears 

 by the aid of the protection of walls, coping, &c., we must differ from him, and 

 think he would soon find the demand for such ones supplied, even though thev 

 could be afforded at considerably less rates than we have named above. We do 

 not care how high the standard of fruit is kept up, though we would not be un- 

 reasonable : but what is now wanted in our markets is, not so much choice speci- 

 mens of wall-fruit as fruit for the million, — good pears, such as can be grown 

 on standards, and sold by the bushel at prices within the reach of every one ; 

 just as fine flavored as if the pears were as big as your head, and vastly more 

 convenient. The fact is, that the use of the fine pears which Dr. Houghton 

 mentions as growing in Jersey, and sold in Covent Garden, is as much confined 

 to the aristocracy of England as are pineapples raised under glass at a guinea 

 apiece. Does any one suppose that the masses of the English people ever touch 

 a fine pear or peach from one year's end to another ? The enjoyment of fruit, 

 from strawberries to pineapples, in England, is as different from what has come 

 to pass under our republican institutions as can be ; and we have no desire to 

 see the latter exchanged for the former, as appears to be Dr. Houghton's aim : 

 nor do we think there is much danger of it ; for we doubt whether, if all the. gar- 

 deners in the United States who are competent to pinch and train trees on walls 

 were brought together, there would be enough to keep in order the twenty thou- 

 sand dwarf trees which D^*. Houghton has in his orchard ; or, if they did suc- 

 ceed in doing it for a few years while the trees were young, they would soon 

 grow beyond the gardeners. It may safely be set down as a rule in this country, 

 that, in nine cases out of ten, whatever a man does in the way of elaborate pruning 

 and training must be done with his own hands, and not with hired hands, the 

 exceptions being just enough to prove the rule. On the contrary, we know that 

 continuous crops of as good pears as ever were eaten have been gathered fi-om 

 standards, and have found a ready sale at remunerative prices. In the early 

 history of pear-culture, the European methods were imitated by those who could 

 afford to, and brick walls were built, and trees trained on them. Some of the 

 walls remain ; but the trees have disappeared, and have not been replanted, 

 Why ? For the simple and excellent reason, that it was discovered that good 

 pears could be grown without training on walls ; and we should as soon expect 

 to see the aristocracy of pre-Revolutionary times back again as to see training on 

 walls generally re-introduced. On this point, the following paragraph from " The 

 Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America" is as true now as when A. J. Downing wrote 

 it twenty-five years ago: "Training fruit-trees is, thanks to our favorable cli- 

 mate, a proceeding entirely unnecessary in the greater part of the United States. 

 Our fine dry summers, with the great abundance of strong light and sun, are 

 sufificient to ripen fully the fruits of temperate climates ; so that the whole artpf,. 

 training, at once the trial and triumph of skill with the English fruit-gardeners,, 

 is quite dispensed with." , 



To return to Dr. Houghton : " The exhibition of plates of selected fruit at 

 horticultural exhibitions, when looked upon as samples of the entire crop, is, 

 literally speaking, a gross deception." True, O king ! but not absolutely new. 

 In these parts, people have been long enough schooled in horticultural exhibi- 



VOU VI. i 46 



