267 



you would have thought of my best peaches, 

 could I have sent you some of them. But come 

 and see me, when they are in bearing, and, I 

 think, I shall enjoy more, in witnessing, than 

 you in eating. 



After previously rearing two orchards, I came 

 to my present residence^ nearly ten years ago. 

 Having a passion for fruit, I commenced my 

 third orchard. For peaches and apples, I used 

 seed, greatly preferring them to scions from old 

 trees. If properly budded, and well nursed, peach 

 trees will begin to yield fine fruit, by the fourth 

 year from the stone. Apples, from the sixth to 

 the tenth, from the seed. Pears — about which 

 you specially inquire — are also much better, 

 when the stocks are raised from seed. But I 

 could not procure seed, and if I could have done 

 it, was not willing to wait for trees, which grow 

 so slowly, in their infant state, that the adage 

 says, " he who plants a pear seed, never lives to 

 eat the fruit." I know this to be not exactly 

 true. But finding myself growing old, I was 

 in a hurry, and procured from the piney old 

 fields, the largest saplings and scions I could 

 find. These I planted early in the spring, cut- 

 ting off all their limbs, that new sprouts might 

 put forth, in which I might insert the buds of 

 choice fruit. They were planted in rich land, 

 with a strong clay substratum, and have been 

 kept well worked ever since. They were budded, 

 as soon as practicable, with such varieties as I 

 liked, all the limbs except those budded kept 

 pruned away, and I am now enjoying rich fruit 

 from my labor. I might stop here, having told 

 my experience, but I do not think I have mea- 

 sured my ell. 



Had you been much acquainted with some of 

 our middle counties — say Cumberland, Buck- 

 ingham, Prince Edward and Charlotte — you 

 would hardly have fallen into the deception, that 

 our climate was unsuitable to the production of 

 as fine pears " as ever melted in the mouth of 

 man." The elder Peter Johnston, father of the 

 late Judge of that name, procured — as tradition 

 says — from Prince's nursery, about the time of 

 its commencement, the Autumn Bergamot and 

 other fruits not often equalled. There are many 

 native varieties of the pear, in this region, well 

 worthy a place in any nursery. Have you 

 never heard of the Brunswick pear 1 It is cul- 

 tivated by the Edmonds family, I believe, of 

 that county. The late Colonel Edmonds sent 

 twigs, for grafting, to gentlemen, in this region, 

 and the fruit is fine. My friend, Col. Charles 

 Woodson, of Prince Edward — now dead — pro- 

 duced several fine new varieties in the following 

 manner. He planted the seed of all the best 

 kinds he could procure. As soon as the young 

 trees grew five or six feet high, he peeled off, 

 from a limb of each, a ring of its bark, in the 

 spring of the year, about the eighth of an inch 

 wide. This prevented the descent of sap, and 



caused the limb to grow much larger above the 

 point of operation. Such a limb invariably 

 bloomed the next spring, and it was found ne- 

 cessary to tie it to a firm stake, to prevent the 

 weight of fruit from breaking it down. If the 

 fruit proved good, he propagated, by budding, 

 from the tree — if bad or indifferent, he budded 

 it, from some good tree. He also produced some 

 beautiful dwarf trees, which bore fine pears, by 

 budding the pear into the hawthorn. Such ef- 

 forts, though not original, are laudable and often 

 highly remunerative. The noble spirit of the 

 late Rev. John Kirkpatrick, of this county, 

 caused him to do more, in the propagation of 

 fine fruit — especially pears — and of fine stock, 

 than any man I have ever known ; and it would 

 be difficult to estimate the indebtedness of this 

 region — independently of his labors in his sacred 

 calling — to that good and highly gifted man. 



After so much desultory writing, a few re- 

 marks on the subject of budding might be ac- 

 ceptable. 



I am frequently asked, " what is the proper 

 season for budding?" I answer, at any time 

 when the sap is running sufficiently for the wood 

 to be separated, with facility, from the bark of 

 the bud. As soon as I find this can be done, in 

 the month of April, 1 use buds of the previous 

 year's formation. If these live, they grow sur- 

 prisingly, as the stock will, at this early season, 

 bear very close trimming. Indeed, I trim closely, 

 until about the middle of June, as all buds which 

 vegetate thus early grow considerably before 

 autumn. I prefer that buds inserted after the 

 middle of June should not vegetate until the 

 next year, and of course, I trim more sparingly. 

 I never cut away the limb, above the bud, until 

 the latter begins to vegetate, during the season 

 in which it was inserted. I, however, invaria- 

 bly do this, early in the following spring, if I 

 find the bud alive. 



For performing the operation, I prepare two 

 sharp knives, a big one to trim with and a small 

 one for budding. I also make a wedge of some 

 close-grained wood — any fruit tree — by making 

 a sloping cut, of half an inch in length, from 

 one side to the other, of a twig a little larger 

 than a crow-quill, and when I wish to be very 

 particular — as in budding roses or other delicate 

 shrubs — I hollow out the centre of this ellipti- 

 cal section, so as to give the little implement a 

 gouge-like appearance. I then choose a smooth 

 surface, on my stock, or one of its limbs — and 

 if of the present year's growth, the better. I 

 here make a transverse incision — after trimming 

 away limbs, leaves and buds, above and below 

 the point of insertion, to suit me, say from six 

 to twelve or eighteen inches — and above this 

 cross-cut, through the bark, I make a vertical 

 one, long enough to suit the bud to be inserted — 

 from half to an inch and three-fourths — like an 

 inverted letter T; then from a twig, of the present 



