196 THE FLORIST AND 
philosophers often teach us it is. !"ut with the pear we have clearly many- 
disadvantages in the stocks we employ to dwarf it. On the thorn it is too 
short-lived, and the quince and the mountain ash are so very liable to be 
destroyed by frosts, that the culture of dwarf pears on them, in some dis- 
tricts, is a continual chase after a rainbow, at the end of which, as our 
nurses told us, we should find bags of gold when we got there. All praise 
to those good tempered souls, who still continue to laugh at the enemy, 
and cherish the fond hope that they will yet discover some effectual mode 
of making him considerably uncomfortable in his favorite strongholds ; but 
while we would not have them relax one iota of their efforts to grow dwarf 
pears in spite of the borer, we may turn aside for a moment to inquire 
whether all our material for stocks have been exhausted with these three 
items ; whether we have nothing equal to them in their dwarfing proper- 
ties, and at the same time free from their diseases or dangers ? Might not 
the pear be successfully worked on the Pyrus jafonica? It might not, 
perhaps, do so well in England, because I think it could not be very abun- 
dantly propagated, at least it is their custom to strike them with bottom 
heat. Here they readily root without any such assistance, and could 
probably be raised in any quantities. All that has to be ascertained is, 
whether the buds of pears would take well on it, and whether they would 
prove as long-lived on it as on the quince. 
With respect to the first question, I may as well state that I have myself 
failed this season in producing a union between them, which ill success, 
however, I attribute to the bad condition of the stocks, which had been 
transplanted so recently as the past spring. Should any of the readers of 
the Florist have a few healthy stocks on hand, there will yet be time enough 
this season to try the experiment. 
There are probably many other species in the same genus or natural 
order, which might do as well as this one ; I give the Pyrus japonica merely 
to suggest one instance that may answer. 
The mahaleb is a first rate stock for the cherry, so far as health and 
facility of union is concerned, and it is every day increasing in its popu- 
larity ; but it must not be denied, that it is not dwarf enough in its nature 
to meet our wants. In fact the mahaleb here, unlike the mahaleb in Eng- 
land or France, grows to be a tree little inferior in size to the cultivated 
cherry itself. I have seen cherries on this stock grow ten feet from the 
bud the first season, though to do them justice they do not grow near so 
fast in succeeding years. Would not the English bird cherry [Oerasus 
padus) make a preferable stock ? They will take readily on it ; at least a 
