IMPROVING FRUIT TREES. 



Among the illustrious benefactors of mankind, the name of 

 Van Mons* seems destined to hold a conspicuous place. By al- 

 most incredible labor, perseverance, and constancy of purpose, 

 through a long succession of years, he seems to have established 

 a philosophical theory of improving or ameliorating fruit trees 

 and other productions of nature, worthy of a place by the side 

 of the wonderful discoveries and improvements in other branch- 

 es of philosophy which characterize the age of Herschel, Sir 

 Humphrey Davy, Cuvier, and a host of other distinguished con- 

 temporaries, — 



" Whose names must honored live, till science dies." 



From a long article in the Horticultural Register and Garden- - 

 er's Magazine of June, 1836, — communicated by Hon. H. A. 

 S. Dearborn, — we have compiled the following, which we 

 think cannot fail of being interesting to a large portion of the 

 members of the Essex Agricultural Society. A. N. 



VAN MONS'S THEORY 



Of ameliorating or improving Fruit Trees, by raising 



successive generations from seed. 



So long as plants or trees remain in their natural situation, 

 their seed always produce the same ; but on changing their 

 climate and territory some will vary more or less, and when 

 they have once departed from their natural state, they never 

 again return to it, but are removed more and more by successive 

 generations. 



The seed, for example, of the wild pear trees, in their native 

 region, always reproduce their like at every age ; that is, be the 

 tree twenty or a thousand years old at the time the seed is ta- 

 ken from it, the fruit of its offspring trees will be precisely like 

 that of the parent stock. But the seed of a domesticated pear 



* Professor of Chemistry at the University of Louvain, Belgium. 



