228 PLAIX AND PLEASANT TALK 



Impatient of delay, the cultivator presses liis trees foiward 

 by stimulating applications, or retards them by violent 

 interference — ^by prunings at the root or branch, by bend- 

 ing or binding ; everything is sacrificed for early and abun- 

 dant bearing. Fine fruit yards, designed to last a hundred 

 years, are served Avith a treatment proper only to a con- 

 servatory or experimental garden. This high-toned system 

 is still more vicious when applied to orchards and especially 

 to pear orchards; and it seems to us that much is to be 

 learned and much unlearned before we shall have attained 

 a true science of pear culture. Let us consider some facts. 

 It is well known that seedling apple-trees are generally 

 longer lived than grafted varieties, and obnoxious to fewer 

 diseases. The same is true of the pear-tree. It has fre- 

 quently been said that seedling and wilding pears were not 

 subject to the blight. This is not true if such trees are under- 

 going the same cultivation as grafted sorts ; it is not always 

 true when they exist in an untutored state ; but when they 

 are left to themselves, they certainly are less obnoxious to 

 the blight and to disease of any kind, than are grafted and 

 cultivated varieties. A comparison between wild and 

 tame, between cultivated and natural, between seedling and 

 and grafted fruit, is certainly to the advantage of seedling 

 uncultivated fruit, in respect to the health of the tree — of 

 course it is not in respect to quality of fruit. In connection 

 with these facts, consider another, that seedling and wilding 

 fruit is nearly twice as long in coming into bearing as are 

 cultivated varieties. The seedling apple bears at from ten 

 to fourteen years. The pear bears at from fifteen to eighteen 

 years. But upon cultivation the grafted pear and apple 

 bear in from five to eight years. It is noticeable that, 

 although the pear as a wilding is four or five years longer 

 in coming to a bearing state than the apple, yet, upon 

 cultivation, they both bear at about the same age from the 

 bud or graft. In a private letter from Robert Manning (we 

 prize it as among the last he eyer wrote ; another, received 



