24 INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE. 



otherwise. Very few of the whole British cata- 

 logue of Apples, are first in quality here. The 

 White Astracan, an apple of high reputation in 

 Russia, becomes very inferior in England ; and 

 a similar loss takes place on the removal to Eng- 

 land of some of the finest Apples of Italy. Some 

 of the best Peaches in the neighborhood of Phila- 

 delphia, become second or third rate in Western 

 New- York, the shorter and cooler summers of the 

 latter region not being sufficient to give full flavor 

 to many of the more southern varieties. American 

 peaches taken to England lose still more. Of fifty 

 sorts, from the middle and western states, tested 

 at the great Chiswick garden, all but two were 

 pronounced "worthless." 



The Pear is perhaps more changed in quality and 

 flavor by external causes than any other species of 

 fruit. Variations in different regions of our own 

 country, and even in different seasons, are great 

 and striking. The Virgalieu, regarded on the 

 whole as the finest pear in Western New-York, 

 is pronounced by Kenrick in the neighborhood of 

 Boston, as an " outcast, intolerable even to sight." 

 Some sorts, which fail at Boston, are still cultivated 

 with success at Salem, only fifteen miles distant. 



But the influence of seasons alone produces ex- 

 traordinary results. In the year 1842, the Wur- 

 temburg pear was regarded in Western New- York 

 as the finest foreign pear among several which had 



