ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWEliS AND FAKMIXfi. 255 



logical writer who appears to have conceived, even, oi 

 tematic, scientific description of fruits. European authors, 

 decidedly more explicit and minute than we are, have never 

 reduced the descriptive part of the science to anything like 

 regularity. We do not suppose that there can be such exact 

 and constant dissimilarities detected between variety and 

 variety of a species, as exists between species and species of 

 a genus. We do not think a description of fruits to be im- 

 perfect, therefore, merely because it is less distinctive than 

 a description of plants. But the more variable and obscure 

 the points of difference between two varieties, the more 

 scrupulously careful must we be to seize them. Where 

 differences are broad and uniform, science can afford to be 

 careless, but not where they are vague and illusory. We 

 can approximate a systematic accuracy. But it must be by 

 making up in the number of determining circumstances, 

 that which is wanting in the invariable distinctiveness of a 

 few that are specific. 



1. Downing's descriptions are quite irregular and unequal. 

 Both his pears and apples are imperfect, but not alike im- 

 perfect. The descriptions of pears are decidedly in advance 

 of those of the apple. It would seem as if the improve- 

 ment which he gained by practice was very easily traced in 

 its course on his pages. 



Hardly two apples are described in reference to the same 

 particulars. . With respect to color of skin, size and form, 

 eye and stem, he approaches the nearest to uniformity. 

 But with respect to every other feature there is an utter 

 want of regularity, which indicates not so much carelessness 

 as the want of any settled plan or conception of a perfect 

 scientific description. 



We will, out of a multitude of similar cases, select a few 

 as specimens of what wo mean. Of the Pumpkin Russet, 

 he says, " flesh exceedingly rich and sweet ;" but he does 

 not speak of its texture, whether coarse or fine ; whether 

 brittle or leathery. Pomme de Neige "flesh remarkably 



