60 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



prolific as the Bartlett, as sure a crop of perfect fruit and as 

 easily grown as a natural variety." Now, we do not say 

 this is impossible, or that it may not in the course of time 

 take place ; but that it is simply absurd, if it means that we are 

 to have all these combined qualities under ordinary modes of 

 cultivation. How can a tree, standing upon a thin soil, swell 

 up a good crop of large fruits during the continuation of 

 our summer droughts, or even without them, when ninety 

 per cent, of this very fruit is nothing but water ? We can- 

 not ourselves see how this is scarcely possible. An average 

 weight of fruit may be obtained from every tree, sometimes 

 more and sometimes less ; but it would be unnatural to sup- 

 pose one tree will bear a much greater weight of fruit than 

 another, because they are of larger size, than if they were 

 smaller. What is gained in size is in most instances lost in 

 number, though not always in the same ratio. If, therefore, we 

 expect to raise large fruits on a common soil, we must thin off 

 a greater portion of it, regulating the quantity to the supply 

 of nutriment. This would seem the proper course, in order 

 to produce fine specimens ; but even this principle is not 

 always sustained in practice, and for this reason : in a light 

 soil, the tree, cut off from its regular supply of moisture, re- 

 ceives a check, and that which should sustain the fruit now 

 nourishes the wood ; for nature steps in, and preserves the 

 life of the tree rather than the growth of the crop; the latter 

 often falls from the branches, the leaves undergo a change, 

 and the tree goes into a state of rest, only to be started again 

 by a fresh supply of heat and moisture. 



It was the theory of Van Mons, that " wild pear trees, in 

 a state of nature, and in their native soils, always reproduce 

 seed without any sensible variation," but that it is not so with 

 plants, "born in the state of variation, either in consequence 

 of having changed the climate, the territory, or from some 

 other unknown cause." In the latter case, the tree is domes- 

 ticated, and the influence of high culture, which is only an- 

 other word for domestication, continues this variation, and 

 generally for the better up to a certain point, beyond which 

 nature cannot go, and then it takes a retrograde course, or is 



