THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



333 



Of pears we have already a noble list ; all 

 of them either picked up wild in hedges, 

 or from the seeds of good pears. 



The whole of Europis has not produced 

 a pear so fine as the Seckel, nor one which 

 succeeds over a wider territory ; and then 

 we have the Brandywine, Tyson, Sheldon, 

 Howell, Lawrence, Onondaga and many 

 others nearly as good as these. There 

 are, at this moment, many thousands of 

 seedlings from our best fruits on trial, and 

 we may reasonably anticipate some im- 

 portant acquisitions. Indeed, I believe 

 that before the end of the present century, 

 our best pears, as well as our apples, will 

 be those originated on our own soil. The 

 facts which I have stated concerning the 

 origin of our best fruits, both native and 

 foreign, hold out great encouragement for 

 the prosecution of this work. My advice 

 to you, here in the West, is to sow every 

 , good seed you can get. 1 rnean the seeds 

 of those fruits which succeed best here. 

 f When your seedlings have made one sea- 

 son's growth, you can bud or graft the 

 most promising on strong stocks or hearing 

 trees and test them in three or four years. 



For several years we have been sowing 

 in this way, and if we get one good one in 

 five hundred, we shall feel satisfied ; we 

 may get twenty. The interest and excite- 

 ment which the work awakens, is no mean 

 recompense in itself. 



No other fact connected with fruit cul- 

 ture is more fully substantiated by every 

 day's experience than this, viz : To in- 

 sure successful cultivation, we must have 

 varieties that are adapted to the peculiari- 

 ties of our soil and climate. Many of 

 your most valuable apples for this country 

 prove utterly worthless with us, whilf-t 

 many of our best fruits fail entirely with 

 you. This Society, and others of a simi- 

 lar character, are collecting information on 

 this head, of the highest value. 



This fact is well established, that the 

 fruits which succeed best in particular lo- 

 calities, are those which originate there, or 

 in others slightly different. I believe the 

 Baldwin, Hubbardson' s JVonsuch, and Por- 

 ter apples, aie no where quite as good as 

 in New England. The JYewtown Pippin^ 

 Swaar, Esopus, Spiizenburg, and JVortkern 

 Spy, are scarcely anywhere so good as in 

 New York. Our northern ap])les are of 

 little value in the south, and the very fin- 

 est southern apples are utterly worthless 



in the north. The reason why those seed- 

 ling fruits obtained in certain localities are 

 more successful there than elsewhere, can- 

 not be that the climate and soil exercise 

 such an influence upon the seed or the 

 seedling, but because, when the seedlings 

 show fruit, those only are preserved which 

 possess qualities that are desirable there. 

 The R. L Greening would not have been 

 preserved in Georgia, nor the Raules Janet 

 in Massachusetts. The true way to ad- 

 vance in this matter will be for the culti- 

 vators of each district to sow the seeds of 

 those varieties which succeed best, or 

 which possess the most important quali- 

 ties. Every successive generation will be 

 more and more acclimated, and thus, in 

 time, fruits will be obtained capable of re- 

 sisting all the changes and severities of cli- 

 mate, and peculiarities of soil. 



In the hurry of our first planting, this 

 experimental culture has been neglected, 

 but it is now high time that it should be 

 taken up in earnest. It may be said that 

 our varieties are already numerous enough, 

 and so they are ; indeed we have far too 

 many, but who will say that even the best 

 are good enough, or that improvement is 

 not necessary or desirable ? No, indeed ; 

 the work of improvement has scarcely be- 

 gun. 



The reform which has within a very 

 few years, been effected in the nomencla- 

 ture of fruits, is not the least important 

 part of our progress. What a labyrinth 

 of error and confusion the names of fruits 

 were in, some dozen years ago. Not more 

 than seven years ago, full one-half of all 

 the fruits exhibited were incorrectly 

 named, or not named at all. The speci- 

 men trees which we collected between 

 1839 and 1843, were full one-half-incorrect, 

 and they were obtained from the most re- 

 liable sources then in existence. Of thirty 

 or forty sj)ecimen peach-trees from one es- 

 tablishment, scarcely one proved true to 

 name. 



In the course of my business as nursery- 

 man, and during my connection with hor- 

 ticultural journals, I have often been sur- 

 prised, of late, at the number of persons 

 who are particular and discriminating 



One man writes, on reception of some 

 trees he has purchased, such and such a 

 variety has dark shoots — the books say 

 they ought to be light. Another says the 

 habit, or the foliage, or the flowers, of his 



