702 APPENDIX. 



science of modern horticulture is so deeply indebted as, how- 

 ever common it is to see the apparent local decline of certain 

 sorts of fruit, yet it is a familiar fact that many sorts have also 

 been continued a far greater length of time than the life of any 

 one parent tree. Still the doctrine has found supporters abroad, 

 and at least one hearty advocate in this country. 



Mr. Kenrick, in his new American Orchardist, adopts this 

 doctrine, and in speaking of Pears, says : " I shall, in the fol- 

 lowing pages, designate some of these in the class of old varie- 

 ties, once the finest of all old pears, whose duration we had 

 hoped, but in vain, to perpetuate. For, except in certain sec- 

 tions of the city, and some very few and highly favoured situa- 

 tions in the country around, they (the old sorts) have become 

 either so uncertain in their bearing so barren so unproduc- 

 tive or so miserably blighted so mortally diseased that they 

 are no longer to be trusted ; they are no longer what they once 

 were with us, and what many of them are still described to be 

 by most foreign writers." 



Mr. Kenrick accordingly arranges in separate classes the Old 

 and New Pears ; and while he praises the latter, he can hardly 

 find epithets sufficiently severe to bestow on the former poor 

 unfortunates. Of the Doyenne he says : " This most eminent 

 of all Pears has now become an outcast, intolerable even to 

 sight ;" of the Brown Beurre, " once the best of all Pears 

 now become an outcast." The St. Germain "has long since 

 become an abandoned variety," &c., <fec. 



Many persons have, therefore, supposing that these delicious 

 varieties had really and quietly given up the ghost, made no 

 more inquiries after them, and only ordered from the nurseries 

 the new varieties. And this, not always, as they have confessed 

 to us, 'without some lingering feeling of regret at thus abandon- 

 ing old and tried friends for new comers which, it must be 

 added, not unfrequently failed to equal the good qualities of their 

 predecessors. 



But, while this doctrine of Knight's has found ready sup- 

 porters, we are bound to add that it has also met with sturdy 

 opposition. At the head of the opposite party we may rank 

 the most distinguished vegetable physiologist of the age, Pro- 

 fessor De Candolle, of Geneva. Varieties, says De Candolle, 

 will endure and remain permanent, so long as man chooses to 

 take care of them, as is evident from the continued existence, 

 to this day, of sorts, the most ancient of those which have been 

 described in books. By negligence, or through successive bad 

 seasons, they may become diseased, but careful culture will 

 restore them, and retain them, to all appearance, for ever. 



Our own opinion coincides, in the main, with that of De 

 Candolle. While we admit that, in the common mode of pro- 

 pagation, varieties are constantly liable to decay or become 



