240 



PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST, 1867. 



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tJNPHUITPUL FRUIT BLOSSOMS. 



In our last number, page 202, we gave an article 

 by Dr. J. S. Houghton, which opens up an entirely 

 new question to horticulturists in a way which pro- 

 mises a s .lution of great practical value, especially 

 to the Pear grower. 



When, three years ago, Mr. Schmidt, of the Pal- 

 isades, New York, called the attention of the read- 

 ers of the Monthly to the fact that so many pears 

 produced flowers that bore no fruit, and inquired 

 the cause, no one could tell. Eveiy one had no- 

 ticed the fact, but no one had ever been so much 

 impressed by the circumstance as to enquire the 

 cause. It was an entirely new question. Dr. 

 Houghton has ever since been most persevering in 

 the endeavor to account for this phenomenon ; as, 

 being himself one of the largest cultivators of the 

 Pear, it was a matter of much more than scientific 

 interest to know why he had so few pears for so 

 much floral promise, and this report of Prof. Wood, 

 given by Dr. H., is the result. 



To lis the remarks of Prof Wood have a personal 

 interest, from the fact that the writer made one of 

 the scientific party, referred to in the article as hav- 

 ing examined the blossoms in the grounds; and, 

 previously to Professor Wood's microscopical ex- 

 amination, and without any com.munication what- 

 ever with one another, both parties — the one from 

 scientific, the other from a practical stand-point, — 

 arrived at the same conclusion^ and expressed it in 

 nearly the same words. 



Dr. Wood has shown how he concluded the Pear 

 was deficient in vitality to mature the flowers. The 

 practical conclusion by the writer was reached in 

 this way : — 



When a Pear with blossom buds is transplanted, 

 the petals of the opening flowers have a thin, trans- 

 parent texture, very difl'erent from the full cupped 

 form and thick substance of a healthy flower. More 

 or less of this was apparent in these blossoms. 

 Again, if we check the vitality of a tree in any way 

 the result is invariably an increase of the flowering 



propensity,— and it has become an axiom with the 

 horticulturist, that Nature endeavors to reproduce 

 its kind the more strongly in proportion to the 

 ' danger of its dying altogether. 



The very fact that these trees had many more 

 flowers than they ought to have for their size, indi- 

 , cated a low state of vitality. We gave this as our 

 opinion, and the course of cultivation pursued in 

 the orchard was exactly calculated to bring this 

 about. 



The proprietor is a strong advocate of clean sur- 

 face culture^ and he keeps the hoe- harrow continu- 

 ally going through the summer season. The roots 

 i and all the best feeding ones, are thus continually 

 pruned. Besides this, the trees have been regularly 

 summer pruned according to the most approved 

 rules laid down by the best Pear authors. The re- 

 sult of this top and bottom pruning is, and must 

 naturally be, the weakened vitality which we saw. 



From the first number of this journal to the pre- 

 sent tim.e we have combatted this pernicious system 

 of continually stirring the soil about fruit trees; but 

 so strongly was the opposite practice rooted in the 

 minds of cultivators, that we met with ridicule on 

 all sides. The public were told by our good friends 

 of the Country Gentleman^ that we advocated "ne- 

 glected culture;" and the awful end of "ne- 

 glected trees" was held up as a rod of terror to 

 those who inclined to lend a willing ear to our sug- 

 gestions. 



Our experience at that time had been confined to 

 standard trees, but that experience had been very 

 full and extensive. We feared to include dwarf 

 trees, and so excepted them ; but we have since 

 satisfied ourselves that even dwarfs are no excep- 

 tions, and we think the experience of the past seven 

 years has taught the Pear cultivator that our plan 

 of cultivating Fears in grass— not neglecting Fears 

 in grass— is the only one that we can adopt in this 

 climate with permanent success. 



There is one note in Prof Wood's paper wliich is 

 particularly interesting, namely : that a flower may 

 have large and full anthers and yet be deficient in 

 pollen. Our intelligent readers are aware of the 

 views of mental development advocated by Dr. Dra- 

 per, of New York, that ideas, like physical phe- 

 nomena, grow, and thus the same discoveries may 

 appear in many parts of the world at the same time 

 without any knowledge, by the inventors, one of 

 the other. 



In accordance with this is the discovery by Prof. 

 Wood of the worthlessness of some apparently per- 

 fect anthers. We find, by a recent French work, 

 the discovery has been made, by Mr. Planchon, of 



