Retrospective Criticism. 311 



clayey, wet, spongy bottom \i the worst of all." He farther states that 

 climate has much less to do with fruit trees than soil, and that Pear trees 

 planted on a lighter soil, are not subject to barrenness. It will, therefore, 

 be seen, that according to this excellent authority, our Boston and Long 

 Island soil in its great variety, is well adapted to all kinds of fruit trees, 

 while a stiff retentive clay is scarcely adapted to any. In corroboration of 

 this, we planted a few years since, a square of young pear trees, where the 

 soil was a very heavy clay, but after two years' trial, found them doing so 

 poorly, and making scarcely any growth, that we transplanted them to a 

 loam, where they are now throwing out fine shoots. One of the largest 

 nurserymen on New York Island, informs us that he finds it exceedingly 

 difficult to raise apples on his soil, which is a stiff, retentive clay. A clay 

 soil is peculiarly injurious to cherries, and for these we never use it. Pears 

 and plums will unquestionably do better than any other fruit on a stiff clay, 

 but our experience is very conclusive to ourselves, that even these succeed 

 far better on a good heavy loam. The author very justly observes on page 

 326, that trees in a damp soil are much more liable to that serious enemy, 

 the frozen sapblight ; such being the case, they must peculiarly suffer in a 

 clay soil, which is well known to be very retentive of moisture. It is men- 

 tioned, page 62, that R. L. Pell, on the Pludson, has been very successful 

 in the cultivation of apples in a strong, deep, sandy loam, on a gravelly 

 subsoil. A Perdigron plum stands behind my house, which has borne fine 

 fruit abundantly for mo:e than 25 years. I have also Seckel and other 

 pear trees, that have borne well for the same length of time. In my own 

 orchard are produced every year as large, fine, and healthy peaches, as in 

 those parts of Delaware, where disease is comparatively unknown. Some 

 of my Crawford's Melocoton m.easured last year more than nine inches in 

 circumference, and of delicious flavor. Judge Strong, of this place, has 

 peach trees that are, I am informed, at least 20 years old, if not much more, 

 and still produce fine healthy fruit. I am strongly of the opinion that the 

 most suitable soil for all fruit trees, is a good gravelly loam. All fruit trees 

 discharge from the root more or less excrementory matter, which, if accu- 

 mulated and retained about the roots, is injurious in a great degree. In a 

 retentive clay soil this must inevitably remain, but in a porous, gravelly 

 soil, the rain has free access to the roots, and washes away the injurious 

 matter before it can produce any evil effect. The soil of Dr. Rhinelander, 

 of Huntingdon, L. I., is of this nature, and he is remarkably successful in 

 the cultivation of every variety of fruit. I do not recollect ever to have 

 seen finer peaches, plums, apricots, and nectarines, than I tasted in his 

 grounds the last year. 



The author asserts that a large number of pears have deteriorated on the 

 seaboard. I cannot speak of Boston, but as applied to Long Island, those 

 assertions are entirely incorrect. We know of but two varieties of fruit 

 that have at all deteriorated, — the Virgouleuse and St. Germain pears ; while 

 we have originated several new varieties, of which the Lawrence pear, a 

 winter fruit, equals the best foreign varieties. This deterioration is, we are 

 satisfied, caused by an insect which attacks the tree in certain localities, but 



