Jannary 17, 1865. 



JOURNAL OP HOKTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEE. 



47 



100 dols., and we shall he surprised if it does not gain the 

 award of the committee. Mr. Carpenter stated that the 

 Pear was known as Dana's Hovey, and called upon Mr. 

 C. M. Hovoyj who was present, to state how it originated. 



"Mr. Hovey stated that the opinion had prevailed for 

 a very long- period that seedlings produced by planting the 

 best known varieties of Pears always tended back towards 

 the wUd stock : hence the neglect of nurserymen to plant 

 seeds, and the efforts made by Van Mons and Knight to 

 obtain new varieties by hybridising and impregnation. Of 

 the ten new sorts produced by Knight, which are considered 

 good in England, only one, the Dunmore, is excellent here. 

 Nature and accident have given us better sorts — witness, 

 the Washington, Sheldon, Seckle, &o. These accidental 

 seedlings certainly did not go back. Mr. Dana, of Koxbury, 

 having determined to attempt to produce new seedlings, 

 planted seeds of the Seckle, Beurre Diel, the Bartlett, 

 and others of the best varieties he could obtain, and the 

 result was that he got six excellent new Pears. This on 

 exhibition is one of the number. It was first brought into 

 notice in ISol, and known as No. 16. It was pronounced so 

 remarkably excellent by the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society tl-.at Mr. Hovey purchased the original tree for the 

 purpose of propagating irom it. This is the first year in 

 which he has obtained fruit to any considerable amount. 

 One of the peculiarities of this Pear is that it never rots 

 from the core, but, like the Apple, decays first upon the 

 surface. The bearing quality of the tree is as good as the 

 Buffum. It has somewhat the habit of the Seckle, but this 

 tree is more vigorous. It has thick, heavy foliage, and no 

 disease. The fruit is about the average size of the "Winter 

 Nelis. The tree grows well both as a standard and dwarf. 

 Mr. Hovey exhibited another Pear called the Caen de 

 France, which was introduced to this country from Van 

 Mons in 1835, and is still very little known. It is much 

 better than the Winter Nelis, and twice as large. It has 

 one fault — it is slow to come into bearing." 



To the reader of gardening periodicals published in the 

 United States, or even of the newspaper press of that 

 country, it must have often occurred how very far in advance 

 of us our transatlantic brethren are in the pursuit of pomo- 

 logy as an art. We may, or may not, excel them in the 

 scientific accuracy of our experiments ; but the intense 

 interest manifested in the production of new varieties, and 

 the accurate mapping out of the districts where such and 

 such first-class sorts may be grown in perfection, accom- 

 plished through the medium of their numerous pomological 

 societies, betoken a more widefelt sympathy with fruit and 

 fruit-grov>dng than we find amongst ourselves. Much of 

 this is attributable, no doubt, to the fact that in even the 

 I^orthern States the average maximum temperature of the 

 summer is never so low as to endanger tlie quality, and in 

 particular the flavour, of our commoner fruits. Americans, 

 at least in the cities and their neighbourhood, are large con- 

 sumers, and, therefore, large producers of fruit. In the 

 hot days of their hot summers the Strawberry, Blackberry, 

 Easpberry, and Peach are welcomed by thousands in a way 

 that we, in a mUder climate, can form Uttle conception of; 

 but even in the depth of winter, when the thermometer 

 sinks again and again to zero or under, the Apple is a 

 household fruit long after it has disappeared from most 

 English desserts. Had we the comparatively cloudless sky 

 of the States, and the consequent improvement in the 

 flavour of our fruits, the Apple and Pear would more fre- 

 quently than at present form a reality on our tables at 

 every meal, to the manifest improvement of our health, 

 instead of being only produced at dessert as a provocative 

 to appetite at a time when all the digestive powers have 

 already exclaimed, "Enough!" 



One advantage America possesses is the evident facility 

 with which good new varieties are produced compared with 

 the reported paucity of their production among thousands 

 of seedlings here and on the continent. Somehow, it would 

 _seem the sporting of the Apple in the United States, after 

 its introduction from Europe, took entirely new and very 

 favourable directions, resulting in at least one quite novel 

 straiui to which we have nothing approaching among the 

 Apples of Europe. It is worth the attention of pomologists 

 to ascertain whether, by subjecting fruits in their growth 

 to occasional outrageously artificial conditions, some out-of- 



the-way sport might be induced in the seedlings produCiSd 

 from them. May not orchard-house fruits work wonders in 

 this way ? 



Prom Australia, I have no doubt, we shall ere long have 

 some splendid acquisitions in new seedlings, the result of 

 the climate our English fruits experience there; but there 

 is a melancholy certainty that not a tithe of them will reach 

 perfection in the average of our summers. After aU, it is 

 on ourselves we must rely. 



A seedling fruit society seems, to me, to have a very clear 

 and important mission marked out for it, and only requires 

 six hearty lovers of good fruit, who are willing to spare a 

 little trouble, to set it a-going. I feel sure the results of a 

 very few years would abundantly reward all who helped the 

 good work forward. A Kibston Pippin in May, a Marie 

 Louise for the warm days, that will at times make us long 

 for early Strawberries a full fortnight before they are come- 

 atable at even 2s. a-quart ! — these, or something quite as 

 good, are perfectly within the reach of careful seed-sowing, 

 and patient waiting for results. This work must be gone 

 into some day, and why no'o in this good, new year as well as 

 any other ? 



A very interesting paper might be written on the contents 

 of an American fruit-nurseryman's catalogue. There is 

 some well-defined law regulating the changes which varieties 

 undergo when transplanted to new climates; but there is, 

 at first sight, such an admirable confusion in the tricks they 

 play, that it will be long ere anything to be depended upon 

 in the way of explanatory theory will be evolved. Indeed, 

 I question much if it would not be profitable for each 

 country to exchange with the other all the seedling fruit 

 trees which had, in the respective countries, been proved to 

 be thoroughly useless. I am confident that each would find 

 some iirst-rate prizes among the other's rejections. Why 

 should Sturmer Pippin and Herefordshire Pearmain be 

 welcomed in the United States as first-class for the dessert, 

 whilst Kerry Pippin and Q-olden Keinette are rejected as 

 almost worthless ? Even the Eibstou and Golden Pippins 

 are only very inferior in New York or Ohio, and Marie 

 Louise scarcely worth growing. 



To a lover of good fruit it is pleasing to trace the origin 

 of valued varieties to their source, and year by year we are 

 adding a few to those we may thank our American cousins 

 for. Our own Peaches and Cherries bid fair to be half 

 supplanted by the new importations, but to our lists of other- 

 fruits the additions from that quarter are only few. In 

 Pears the Seckle is the only one that has as yet received a 

 first-class certificate from the English fruit-grower. In 

 Apples we have Early Harvest, Mother Apple, Franklin's 

 Golden Pippin, Northern Spy, Melon Apple, and perhaps a 

 few others. In Plums we have Jefferson and several other- 

 first-rate sorts. In Gooseberries we are unrivalled by the 

 produce of either the continent or the Western hemisphere ; 

 and, therefore, by a strange confusion of thought, similarly 

 exercised in relation to other things than fruit, pass scorn- 

 fully by what we should rear very delicately were they not 

 so thoroughly un-aristocratic as to grow quite delicious 

 without other help than the summer sunshine, strained to 

 dilution through our own dull atmosphere. I have seen 

 and heard a good deal of Black H-amburgh Grapes, but 

 have yet to feast my eyes and taste upon any that shall 

 half reacu the excellence of the produce of some very ple- 

 beian Gooseberry bushes within view from my window. — 



PK-giT-EATEE. 



LILTUMS AJSB GLADIOLUSES. 



A coMiiOK mistake in the culture of Liliums is putting 

 too many in one pot. I was struck with an article by one 

 of your contributors, in which he recommends about half a 

 dozen to be put in one pot. I smiled when reading it, for I 

 gave up this practice some years ago. In a 10-inch pot I 

 rarely put more than one bulb, and in a No. 4 pot two, and 

 these I plant in a compost of one-thu-d good sweet dung 

 (if a few old dry " cow patches " are to be had all the 

 better), and two-thirds new soil, -with a sprinkling of sand. 

 I plant at different times, as recommended by another cor- 

 respondent, to insure continuous bloom, and water with 

 liquid manure weekly after the leaves show above the 

 soil. I think the bulbs should be planted at least 2 inches 



