M. J. DECAISNE OjST VARIABILITY IN THE PEAR-TREE. 



45 



amongst which we must place in the first line that of climates, or 

 of soils incompatible with the peculiar exigencies of the variety' 

 and very frequently also bad cultivation, or the abuse of pruning so 

 frequent in our days, which would fain pass for perfection. Our 

 old pears, so justly esteemed one or two centuries ago, are still 

 the same as when they were more in request ; they ripen at the 

 same seasons, and keep also as perfectly. It suffices, in fact, to 

 quote the Epargne, Crassane, St. Germain, Doyenne, Chaumontel, 

 "Winter Bon Chretien, and Easter Beurre, known now as the 

 Doyenne d'Hiver, to be convinced that our old varieties have lost 

 nothing of their good qualities. If we neglect them, it is not be- 

 cause they have degenerated, it is only because the nurserymen 

 are interested in sending out their novelties. This degenerating 

 of old races, accepted without opposition, is in reality nothing 

 more than one of those works of industrial acuteness so easily 

 excused in our days. 



Is it then more true, as Van Mons has asserted, and as most 

 pomologists believe, that the seeds of good kinds of fruit produce 

 crabs with harsh fruit, reverting to what are supposed to be the 

 specific types ? I do not hesitate to affirm the contrary ; and I 

 defy anyone to quote a single example of a fruit of any quality 

 impregnated with the pollen of its own flower, or of others of the 

 same race, whose seeds have given rise to a crab. If a variety of 

 merit is impregnated by a variety with harsh fruit, there will cer- 

 tainly spring from its seeds new varieties, which for the greater 

 part, if not altogether, will be inferior in quality ; there may even 

 be found some whose fruit shall be as bad as that of the wild 

 plant which has furnished the pollen ; but this degeneration, if 

 we may give it the name, is nothing more than the consequence 

 of an ill-assorted crossing. We may consider it certain that every 

 distinguished variety of pear-tree, and I may say of all our fruit- 

 trees, if it is fecundated by itself alone, will give birth to good 

 fruit ; it may and will probably differ, sometimes by one character, 

 sometimes by another from the mother variety, but no one will 

 assume the characters of the wilding, any more than our Can- 

 taloup Melons resume, by sowing, the form, size, and taste of 

 the little wild melons of India, or our cauliflowers or cabbages 

 revert to any of the wild kinds so different in habit and quality 

 which grow on the cliffs of the Ocean and Mediterranean. 



"Whatever then the partisans of immutability may say, species 

 in the vegetable kingdom are endowed with great flexibility ; and 

 it is not a vain hypothesis which refers to the same specific type 



