CROPS AND PROFITS. . 151 



dation ; their trunks white with moss, their upright 

 shoots completely covered with a succession of 

 crooked, gnarled, mossy fruit spurs, that crinkled 

 under the scraper like dried "brambles ; the extremity 

 of eveiy upright bough was reduced to a shrivelled 

 point of blackened and sun-dried wood, and the fruit 

 so dwarfed as to puzzle the most astute of the po- 

 mologists. 



I made a clean sweep of the old fruit spurs, 

 docked the limbs, scraped the bark to the quick, 

 washed with an unctuous soapy mixture, dug 

 about and enriched the roots, and in three years' 

 time, there were new leading shoots, all garnished 

 with fresh fruit spurs which, in September fairly 

 broke away with the weight of the glowing pears. 



The Seckels, of which there were several trees, 

 have not come so promptly ' to time.' The fer- 

 tilizers and the cleaning process, which have given 

 rampant vigor to the Buffums, have scarce lent to the 

 dwindled Seckels any appreciable increase of size or 

 of succulence. The same is true, in a less degree, of 

 certain old stocks, grafted some fifteen years ago 

 with Bonne de Jersey, and since left to struggle 

 with choking mosses, and wild sod. 



It .is unnecessary to enumerate all the varieties 

 which I found stifling in my orchard, from the 

 bright little Harvest pear to the crimson-cheeked 



