202 [Assembly 



man were to be adopted , it would be just as impossible to agree upon 

 a list to be recommended as upon one to be rejected. No one variety 

 could be proposed as being universally or equally good in all sections 

 of the country ; but there were some few plain, obvious principles,* 

 which would hold in the decision as to each fruit as it came up. If, 

 for instance, the Ambrosia pear should be pronounced good in any 

 considerable region, then it ought not to be rejected. No variety 

 should be placed on the list of rejected fruits, whilst there was any 

 hope that it might prove to be good. 



Mr. iluvEY agreed wilh the last speaker, and it was because he did 

 so that he had moved that any fruit on the rejected list, to the prohibi- 

 tion of which any gentleman might except, be retained. Yet, if we 

 could only agree on abandoning ten worthless varieties, some advantage 

 woulil be gained, and the beginning of a useful result would be reached. 



Mr. Noble, of New- York, inquired whether the report under con- 

 sideration was a report from the fruit committee of this Congress or 

 nof? 



Mr. Walker, in reply, stated that the list of pears proposed to be 

 rejected was iu.u\c out by the sub-committee on the part of Massa- 

 chusetts, and reported by them to the general committee, which body 

 now laid it before the Congress as its own report. Massachusetts had 

 nothing more to do with it. 



Mr- Downing informed the Congress that the statement of Mr. 

 WalkeFw was entirely correct, and that, moreover, before submitting 

 the list under consideration, the general committee had stricken off 

 several varieties that the Massachusetts sub-committee proposed to 

 reject. 



Dr. MoNSON, of Connecticut, wished to know if these gentlemen 

 who advocated a rejection, on the one side, and those who disapproved 

 of it, on the other, had a general practical experience of the success 

 or failure of the fruits under consideration ? or were they like the phy- 

 sician who — finding that an English patient, who ate of Westphalia 

 ham while under treatment for a fever, recovered from the disease, 

 thereupon prescribed the same article to a Scotchman suffering from the 

 same malady, who, nevertheless, died — entered it upon his books that 

 Westphalia ham would cure an Englishman, but kill a Scotchman? 

 Of course, there would be differences in the result of cultivating the 

 same fiuit in different sections of the country, different climates, and 



