Botany and Zoology. 433 
Pears, and each of the four gave rise to a considerable number of new 
varieties, as different from each other and from their mother, as she was 
rom the greater part of our old varieties. “It is not only in the fruit that 
trees raised from the same seed differ; but also in the time of their ripen- 
ing, general appearance, and in ~ form of their leave es, ... Some have 
spines, some have none, some have slender wood, in some it is stout and 
grafting upon a Pear-tree, that is to say, upon the wild Pear-tree; but 
all will not take upon the Quince, as for example the Rance, Clairgeau, 
Bose, Duchesse de Mars, dc.” The flowers also showed very striking 
brids, &c., Decaisne will not allow to be proba le. But it would be 
difficult to disprove it. He admits the crossing, but maintains that the 
constant aed after every conceivable cross, argues identity and not 
diversity = 
“ Does th waft, as some people maintain, alter the character of the va- 
riety ?” He concludes it does not. “The notion that fruit-trees degen- 
erate because they are propagated by grafting is an error which must be 
exposed. There is no single fact to prove it. Those which have been 
cited depend upon totally different causes, first and foremost among 
which are climate, unsuitable soil, and very often bad cultivation or a 
neglect of pruning, so common now-a-days. Our ancient pears, which a 
century or two ago were so justly esteemed, are now exactly the same as 
they ever were; they ripen at the same time and keep good just as long. 
.. The pretended degeneracy of ancient races is really nothing more 
than one of the clever devices of the present day. 
“On the other hand, can it be true, as Van Mons and many pomologists 
believe, that the pips of a good fruit produce wild austere fruit, and 
thence return to what they suppose to be the specific = sib not 
cals’ 
or by that of any of their own race, whose produced wild fruit. 
.. It may be considered certain, that all superior varieties of the Pear- 
tree, and I may say of all fruit-trees, if they are fertilized by themselves, 
none will become wild, any more than our seedling Cantaloupe melons 
return to the form and flavor of the little wild melons of India, or than 
- our Cabbages and Cauliflowers return to some one of con wild races that 
grow on the sea-shore. Whatever the advocates of imm mutability may say, 
i re 
