500 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



profusely. Indeed, few foreign trees are doing better in New- 

 Jersey, and said gentleman can see from his grounds lots of 

 over half secular quince trees yielding every year handsome 

 profits. So much for the acclimation of the poor Cydonia. 



Let the quince stock be abused, we shall do as the philos- 

 opher of Greece; when Pythagoras denied motion, Zeno 

 went walking. Let the quince be slandered, it will remain 

 one of our best friends. Your profits in fruit raising are 

 mostly derived from quince stock. The best fruits of your 

 splendid exhibitions are from the qui?tce stock. Mr. M. P. 

 Wilder's best trees and best fruits are on the quince stock : 

 so are Messrs. Ch. Downing's, Ellwanger & Barry's, Dr. 

 Grant's, Mr. Reid's, and my own. 



Let gentlemen botanists have their own way in staling 

 contradictory experiments, based upon improper or bad man- 

 agement, drawing from these unsatisfactory conclusidus. 

 "On we shall go;" and, by a judicious selection of varieties 

 and proper cultivation, (for it is folly to expect luscious fruits 

 from neglected trees,) we shall fill our shelves and walk 

 among our well shaped, healthy pyramids with a blessing for 

 the unknown genius who first tried the quince as a stock for 

 the pear, and made really, in the pear cultivation, the same 

 revolution as steam has done for our travelling. 



A more satisfactory answer to the tirade of nonsense which 

 is going the rounds of the papers in reference to the cultiva- 

 tion of "dwarf pears," viz., the pear upon the quince, could 

 not well be given. It is to the point, and coming as it does 

 from one who is amply able, after many years of observation 

 in France and Belgium, where the pear has so long been 

 cultivated, as well as in our own country, to give an opinion, 

 will have the influence to which its sound common sense 

 duly entitles it. 



It is one of the most serious drawbacks to all progress in 

 horticultural art, especially in our country, that so much em- 

 piricism is mixed up with a thorough scientific knowledge of 

 cultivation ; that those who do not know the first principles 

 of a science should attempt to teach those who have made it 



