Na XXXn^] APPENDIX. 371 



but to point to as a dangerous plant. Absinthe is now drunk enormously 

 in Paris. Fi-om four to six o'clock in the afternoon, everyone is drinking 

 this absinthe, and I have consulted my brother medical practitioners of 

 France, who say that many brain diseases and epileptic fits are produced 

 by taking this pernicious herb. Therefore, if you have it, have it to 

 show persons that they may not introduce it into this country. 



I will pass from vegetables to fruit trees. I like fmit, and I find that 

 most of my visitors do not object to it also. Let us begin with the apple. 

 We all liked apples as children, and not only do children Kke them, but 

 the geese, and not only geese but the fowls, and not only the fowls but 

 horses, and not only horses but the oxen ; and I know this because my btdl 

 got out and ate up a whole tree of apples, tree and all. Now the varieties 

 of apples are mere varieties of the wild crab. They are all within the limit 

 of the variation we may obtain of any one plant, and they are not new 

 species. But these varieties are very numerous : I have more than 

 three hundred kinds. I believe there are one or two thousand varieties 

 which are not recorded. Many varieties are obtained by horticultural 

 processes. Now, with good management, we ought to have an apple for 

 every day in the year. Tou begin with a littie apple which ripens in July. 

 Ton go on step by step until you have apples ripening at Christmas. Tou 

 go on again until March, and then you still have apples, for there are 

 some which do not become ripe until March, and we finish off with the 

 French crab in June, which is not only in perfection then, but will last 

 over a second year ; and so by a littie careful adjustment we may have not 

 only culinary, but also eating apples aU the year round. About thirty to 

 forty kinds are amply sufficient for this purpose. 



Then we come to the pear ; but pears are either very fine or very bad, 

 and we must make a much more careful selection. If we begin by the end 

 of July with a small early pear, and go on from one to another, we can 

 have fruit well into the winter. That delicious pear the " Marie Louise," 

 I may say in parenthesis, was raised by Tan Mons, a Dutchman. There is 

 an enormous number of different varieties, and in selecting a variety you 

 have to go over an extensive range to find one truly fine pear. 



Now we go to work in a particular manner with pears to obtain quick 

 produce. "He who grows pears grows for his heirs," is an old saying. 

 Virgil says, " Plant pears, and thy posterity shall gather the fruit." But 

 we know how to get them much sooner. We must proceed in a true horti- 

 cultural manner for this purpose. We cut the shoot of a pear-tree true off 

 and plant it upon a quince. By grafting it in this way we render the pear- 

 tree fertile, and then in a year or two we get fmit which we might have 

 had to wait twenty years for if the ti-ee had been grown in the ordinary 

 way. It is to be observed that the quince stock should be cut off close to 

 the ground, not under the ground, or else the pear will throw out roots 

 and you will be no better off than if you had planted the pear-tree. 



Having planted our pear-trees, we must train them in a particular 

 way. We so arrange that the quince stock comes exactiy level with the 

 ground, then all the upper part is the pear-tree, and this must be trained 

 in a certain manner to allow the light and warmth to come upon the fruit. 

 We cut the branches into the form of a pyramid, as near as may be, to 

 look like a Jack-in-the-green. Every branch is exposed to the sun and 

 Ught, and upon every branch, there we get the pears. 



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