DURATION OF VARIETIES OF FRUIT-TREES. 



13 



and as fine as have been figured or described by any writer, either in 

 this or any other country whatever. Instead of the trees being in a 

 state of ' rapid decay,' they may be found of unusually large size, per- 

 fectly healthy, and their crops abundant; the fruit perfect in form, 

 beautiful in color, and excellent in quality." And the like remarks are 

 made of the Nonpareil. 



Certain French writers, about this time, gladly seized Knight's theory 

 as an explanation of the miserable state into which several fine old sorts 

 of pears had fallen about Paris, owing to bad culture and propagation. 

 They sealed the death-warrant, in like manner, of the Brown Beurre, 

 Doyenne, Chaumontel, and many others, and consigned them to oblivion 

 in terms which Mr. Kenrick has already abundantly quoted. 



Notwithstanding this, and that ten or fifteen years have since elaps- 

 ed, it is worthy of notice that the repudiated apples and pears still hold 

 their place among all the best cultivators in both England and France. 

 And the " extinct varieties " seem yet to bid defiance to theorists and 

 bad cultivators. 



But half the ground is not yet covered. How does the theory work 

 in America ? is the most natural inquiry. In this country we have 

 soil varying from the poorest sand to the richest alluvial, climate vary- 

 ing from frigid to almost torrid — a range wide enough to include all 

 fruit-trees between the apple and the orange. 



We answer that the facts here, judged in the whole, are decidedly 

 against the theory of the extinction of varieties. While here, as abroad, 

 unfavorable soil, climate, or culture have produced their natural results 

 of a feeble and diseased state of certain sorts of fruit, these are only the 

 exceptions to the general vigor and health of the finest old sorts in the 

 country at large. 



Recent experiments have proved that it is not sufficient to bring 

 healthy trees of the old varieties from the interior of the seaboard to in- 

 sure, in the latter localities, fair and excellent crops. But, on the other 

 hand, the complete renovation of blighted trees by the plentiful use of 

 wood-ashes, bone-dust, lime, and blacksmith cinders, along with common 

 manure, shows us distinctly that it is not the age of these varieties of 

 fruit which causes their apparent decline, but a want of that food abso- 

 lutely necessary to the production of healthy fruit.* 



But there is another interesting point in this investigation. Do 

 the newly originated sorts really maintain in the unfavorable districts 

 the appearance of perfect health? Are the new pears uniformly 

 healthy where the old ones are always feeble ? 



Undoubtedly this question must be answered in the negative. Some 



* Since the writing of this, in 1845, there have occurred seasons when nearly 

 every variety of fruit perfected, and there have also been seasons when the 

 old as well as new varieties have failed, and that too in almost all soils and in 

 many varied sections of the country. To our knowledge, no continued experi- 

 ments in the practice of applying special manures as remedial agents have been 

 tried, but, from the fact that old as well as new sorts have frequently failed in 

 our rich western soils and inland climates, we have come to regard the cause of 

 cracking and other diseases of the pear more to proceed from climatic or atmos- 

 pheric influence than from any special condition or quality of the soil. It is 

 now generally conceded that our seasons are more changeable and the extremes 

 greater than they were half a century back, and to this influence do we attribute 

 in a great measure the deterioration noted in occasional seasons and localities. 



