304 Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. 



nectarine, thirteen : raspberry, ten : strawberry, thirty-five : 

 and the usual sorts of the currant, lig, gooseberry, quince, 

 &c. 



There are various subjects which we should like to notice, 

 such as the frozen sap blight of the pear, so called, but we 

 have only room to refer to the appendix, containing the views 

 of the author on the duration of varieties of fruit trees. 



The theory advanced by the late Mr. Knight, in relation 

 to the duration of varieties, has found both friends and oppo- 

 nents among the cultivators of Europe, as well as our own 

 country. We have not ourselves, however, been willing to 

 adopt his views, notwithstanding much evidence has been 

 brought forward to substantiate the doctrine. Our opinion 

 has been the same as that of the celebrated Decandolle, whom 

 the author quotes, viz., that careful culture will " retain 

 them, to all appearance, forever." This opinion we have 

 heretofore expressed in our review of the American Orcliard- 

 ist, and on other occasions. 



But, notwithstanding our disbelief in Mr. Knight's theory, 

 it is certainly true that the elements of decay are apparent 

 in a great many of those pears which Mr. Kenrick has de- 

 nominated as outcasts ; and though there has been a cause 

 for this, such as long continued neglect, bad stocks, — propa- 

 gating from diseased trees, &c., it must be admitted that, prac- 

 tically speaking, Mr. Knight's theory appears correct. We 

 know that in some particular localities, the Doyenne or St. 

 Michael still produces delicious fruit, and we also know that 

 in other localities, in soils fully as well adapted for their 

 growth, they are quite worthless. Let us examine some of 

 the author's remarks on this head. After alluding to the pro- 

 ductive state of the orchards of the Doyenne, Brown Beurre, 

 and others, on the North River, he proceeds : — 



" On the other hand, we candidly admit that there has been for some time 

 a failure of many sorts of pear and apple in certain parts of the country. 

 All along the sea-coast ivhere the climate is rude, avd the soil rather sandy, 

 as vipon Long Island, in New Jersey, near Hartford, and around Boston, 

 many sorts of pears that once flourished well, are now feeble, and the fruit 

 is often blighted. 



This is owing plainly to two causes. First, to the lightness of the soil, 

 which in this climate, under our hot sun (as we have already remarked,) 

 lays the foundation of more than half the diseases of fruit trees — because, 



