SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
i:9 
ItpaitmtEt. 
FRUIT GROWING, IN A GENERAL POINT 
of view. 
BY L. B. BERCKMANS. 
Of late a great deal has been written about the cultiva- 
tion of fruit trees, and especially in regard to the pear. 
Discouraged by partial or local failures, some have con- 
tended that it was impossible to grow pears with any 
prospect of certain profits. Some have said as much against 
the peach and grape vine. We have no reason to stand 
up in defence of any species of fruits : but, taking a gener- 
al and unprejudiced view of the matter, we may express 
our surprise in witnessing these efforts to restrain the cul- 
tivation of useful products and that from the part of gentle- 
men who are willing to try every experiment, every 
remedy to promote the raising of field or garden crops, 
often more uncertain than those of fruit trees. 
If those writers would only cast a glance over the pro- 
ducts destined to the sustenance of men and animals, or 
to the dainties and luxuries of our tables, how much more 
reserved they would be in their attacks ! 
The main question is this: “Can or shall we dis- 
pense with fruit and confine ourselves to corn, wheat, 
rice, &c.'l 
By a wise provision of nature, the fruit crops follow 
each other in succession, so as to enable us to satisfy 
throughout all the year, those natural cravings for fresh 
fruit. The strawberry is succeeded by the currant, rasp- 
berry and gooseberry ; by the apricot, early apples, 
plums and peaches ; then comes the pear, the grape, the 
late apples. We mention only the natural products of 
given localities, and not the supply from distant tropical 
points. We should like to see every locality and latitude 
depend upon its own resources in cases of emergency, as 
they depend upon their own field crops. Home-grown 
fruit is generally in a better condition than transported 
fruit ; and, if not altogether as good in quality, it will keep 
better and cost less. 
But to return. Shall we give up the cultivation of some 
sorts of fruits, on accouni of a few drawbacks, and dis- 
pense entirely with these 7 We could, as well ask : shall 
we give up the tomato, the egg-plant, the melon, the okra, 
which cannot be considered an indispensable food, but 
only as luxuries and dainties, because they are not mere 
necessities, or because they require so much care and 
watching, and are exposed to so many failures 7 What 
has become an article of diet or luxury for the mass, has 
either to be raised at home or imported at double cost. 
There is no protesting against that. Pears and grapes, 
if neglected and given up at home, will as surely be im- 
ported as silk and lace. Whoever thought of giving up 
the cultivation of the potato on account of the rot and its 
many ruinous failures, or the wheat for the rust, the fly, 
or the weevil, or the grape for the oidium 7 Is a melon 
less cultivated, here at the North, because it requires so 
much watching and protecting, or the egg plant or lima 
bean abandoned, because they are so uncertain; or, are our 
best vegetables discarded because exposed to the ravages 
of a host of insects, spring frosts, and other drawbacks 7 
No, we struggle and toil, and try again, and more highly 
prize that which costs us the greatest efforts. 
It seems rashness to condemn a certain sort of fruit, be- 
cause one or two men have failed in limited, poor locali- 
ties, in ungenial latitudes; and because in the bitterness of 
their disappointment they write and write again to dis 
courage others. It is one of our wcfiltpesses to judge 
about everything from a limited and nar»aw point of view. 
A gentleman, after years of successful cultivation, finds 
put one season that the borer has taken b 9 |d of his apple 
trees, or that the yellows and the borer are destroying his 
peach orchard ; instead of trying other fruits or remedies, 
he yields to an impulse of disgust and disappointment, 
takes his pen and writes a bitter philippic against apple 
and peach trees. Is that the way we have to do 7 These 
are partial, local failures, grains of sand in the vast ocean, 
and ohght not to be mentioned by men of enlarged and 
comprehensive intellects. If, induced by their verdicts, 
we abandon the fruit culture, because such culture would 
not pay in certain cases, what would the people of the 
Union do 7 how could they be persuaded to dispense with 
apples, pears, peaches or grapes 7 The mere supposition 
of such a gap in our markets, now that the public is usd 
to all these luxurious and wholesome products, and fully 
appreciates the healthful influences of a bountiful con- 
sumption of fruit; the mere supposition of such a defici- 
ency would seem as ridiculous as the idea of dispensing 
with tomatoes, cabbages, celery, rhubarb, which are no 
more to be considered necessaries of life than a peach or a 
pear. 
Alphonse Karr, the French humorist, once wrote in his 
Hornets ; “Let the strawberries fail for three days in the 
Parisian market, and there will be a revolution ;” and, in 
a certain measure, this is true. Suppose we had to get 
along without apple-pie — dried peaches and apples, not to 
speak of fresh fruit, still more conducive to health, more 
emphatically indispensable— and what would be the re- 
sult 7 Apples would sell as once in San Francisco for 
two or three dollars a piece. One of my friends assured 
me that he saw Oregon apples sold for six dollars a piece ; 
but let them be, it is enough to show the eagerness of all 
of us, from the child to the oldest man, to get hold of a fine 
fruit. 
Since, then, it must be admitted that fruit is not only a 
luxury, but a necessary article of food and human diet, 
shall we not then do for the fruit crop what we do for field 
crops 7 The same amount of labor which is required for 
a couple of hills of corn or potatoes, bestowed on a fruit 
tree, will most always insure its success. If crops fail for 
a year or two, one good season pays for all. Even our 
field crops would have little to suffer from the presence of 
some fruit trees, kept under judicious treatment. All we 
have to do is to try to find out what our soil can and will 
produce. Few soils are unfit for all sorts of fruit trees. 
In places where no corn or rye will grow have I seen 
many a good acre covered with the Catawba and Warren 
grapes and yielding from four to six hundred dollars per 
acre, in soils abandoned as unfit for every other cultiva- 
tion. South Carolina and Georgia will soon be awake to 
tiiis new enterprise, and acres upon acres of land not 
worth five dollars, are going to be converted into vineyards 
to supply the Union with wine, equal, if not superior, to 
any Hock or Madeira. Because Cincinnati has failed for 
the last two seasons to produce the usual quantity of wine, 
are the gentlemen of Ohio going to give up t|je cultivation 
of the grape 7 Please ask them if their winters were not 
so severe, or other causes interfering, would there be any 
diminution in the yield of their vintages ! And because 
France, Italy, Madira and Spain have seen their vine- 
yards destroyed by the oidium, for years in succession, 
are they going to cut down their vines 7 No, they re- 
sort to every means to cure, to restore ; they struggle man- 
fully, with redoubled energy, and they, at last, have con- 
quered the enemy. What a difference compared 
to the fastidiousness and puerile disgust of our fruit culti- 
vators ! What are the borer, the yellows, the blight all 
taken together, when compared to that scourge of the 
French vineyards, the oidium 7 and still they did not talk 
of uprooting their vines, but went to battle with the aid 
of science and experience, and after years of ruin and dis- 
appintment, they have restored, at least partially, vigor 
and health to the once abandoned grape vines. 
