6 PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIE£S. 
Peais, he succeeded in raising an immense number of new 
varieties, of high excellence. The Beurré Diel, De ieee: 
Frederic of Wurtemberg, &c., are a few of the many We 
known sorts which are the result of his unwearied labours. 
The Van Mons theory may be briefly stated as follows: 
All fine fruits are artificial products; the aim of nature, 11 a 
wild state, being only a healthy, vigorous state of the tree, and 
perfect seeds for continuing the species. It is the object of cul- 
ture therefore, to subdue, or enfeeble this excess of vegetation ; 
to lessen the coarseness of the tree; to diminish the size of the 
seeds; and to refine the quality and increase the size of the 
flesh or pulp. - ; 
There is always a tendency in our varieties of fruit trees to 
return by their seeds towards a wild state. 
This tendency is most strongly shown in the seeds borne by 
old fruit-trees. And “the older the tree is of any cultivated 
variety of Pear,” says Dr. Van Mons, “the nearer will the 
seedlings, raised from it, approach a wild state, without however 
ever being able to return to that. state.” 
On the other hand, the seeds of a young fruit tree of a good 
sort, being itself in the state of amelioration, have the least ten- 
dency to retrograde, and are the most likely to produce improved 
sorts. 
Again, there is a certain limit to perfection in fruits. When 
this point is reached, as in the finest varieties, the next genera- 
tion will more probably produce bad fruit, than if reared from 
seeds of an indifferent sort, in the course of amelioration. 
While, in other words, the seeds of the oldest varieties of good 
fruit mostly yield inferiour sorts, seeds taken from recent varie- 
ties of bad fruit, and reproduced uninterruptedly for several gene- 
rations, will certainly produce good fruit. 
With these premises, Dr. Van Mons begins by gathering his 
seeds from a young seedling tree, without paying much regard 
to its quality, except that it must be in a state of variation; that 
is to say, a garden variety, and not a wild sort. These he 
sows in a seedbed or nursery, where he leaves the seedlings 
until they attain sufficient size to enable him to judge of theu 
character. He then selects those which appear the most pro- 
mising, plants them a few feet distant in the nursery, and awaits 
their fruit. Not discouraged at finding most of them of mediocre 
quality, though differing from the parent, he gathers the first 
seeds of the most proiising and sows them again. The next 
generation comes more rapidly into bearing than the first, and 
shows a greater number of promising traits. Gathering imme- 
diately, and sowing the seeds of this generation, he produces a 
third, then a fourth, and even a firth generation, uninterruptedly, 
from the original sort. Each generation he finds to come more 
quickly into bearing than the previous ones, (the 5th sowing of 
