Fruits and Fruit Trees of America. 305 



after a few years, the necessary sustenance is exhausted by the roots of a 

 bearing tree, and every one knows how rarely it is re-supplied in this coun- 

 try. We can from our own observation on the effects of soil, take a map 

 and mark out the sandy district on the whole sea-board, where certain sorts 

 of pears no longer bear good fruit ; while within a few miles, on strong 

 deep loams, the fruit is fair and beautiful — the trees healthy and luxuriant. 



In the second place, it arises from the constant propagation of the same 

 stock ; a stock becoming every year more and more enfeebled in those lo- 

 calities by the unfavorable soil and climate. No care is taken to select 

 grafts from trees in healthy districts, and this feeble habit is thus perpetu- 

 ated in the young grafted trees until it becomes so constitutional, that, in 

 many cases, trees sent from the sea-boai'd into the interior, will carry the 

 degenerate habit with them, and are often many years in regaining their 

 normal state of health. 



To add force to this view, we will add, that we have had the satisfaction 

 lately, of seeing trees of the condemned varieties taken from healthy inte- 

 rior districts to the sea-board, where they have already borne fiuit as fair 

 and unblemished as ever ; — thus proving that the variety was not enfeebled, 

 but only so much of it as had been constantly propagated in a soil and cli- 

 mate naturally rather unfavorable to it. While in favorable positions it 

 maintained all its original vigor." — pp. 555, 556. 



Sincerely do we regret that Mr. Downing has allowed his 

 work, so unexceptionable in most respects, to contain such an 

 erroneous statement as the above. Truly the geographical 

 distribution of soils must be a familiar subject, to mark off the 

 " sandy district of the whole sea-board, where certain sorts 

 of pears no longer bear good fruit." It would certainly be a 

 circuitous line, extending inland as far as the Mississippi. 

 We repeat, that we regret the remark, for the author must 

 have known that in Indiana and Ohio, the same pears which 

 fail in other places, fail there too. On this head we have the 

 evidence of our correspondent, Mr. Ernst, who in an article, 

 part of which we quote, in the Western Farmer and Gar- 

 dener^ thus alludes to the subject : — 



" About the year 1828 or 1829, I purchased a quantity of pear trees of 

 N. Longworth, Esq., who was then conducting the nursery business, (to 

 whom, by the by, the public are largely indebted, for his untiring exertions, 

 at an early day, to introduce fine fruits,) among which were a number of 

 the above pear. I also purchased an additional quantity of pear trees of a 

 person up Licking, making some ten or twelve trees of the pear in question. 

 They all flourished, and came into fine bearing, and certainly nothing could 

 well have exceeded the richness, flavor, and beauty of the fruit for a num- 

 ber of years. But when my trees had attained some size and age, the fell 

 VOL. XI. — NO. VIII. 39 



