310 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
BOBLINK. 
Of all the birds of our groves and mead¬ 
ows, the boblink was the envy of my boy¬ 
hood. He crossed my path in the sweetest 
weather, and the sweetest season of the year, 
when all nature called to the fields, and the 
rural feeling throbbed in every bosom ; but 
when I, luckless urchin ! was doomed to be 
mewed up, during the livelong day, in that 
purgatory of boyhood—a school-room—it 
seemed as if the little varlet mocked at me, 
as he flew by in full song, and sought to 
taunt me with liis happier lot. Oil how I 
envied him ! No lessons, no task, no hate¬ 
ful school—nothing but holiday, frolic, green 
fields and fine weather. Had I then been 
more versed in poetry, I might have ad¬ 
dressed him in the words of Logan to the 
cuckoo: 
Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, 
Thy sky is ever clear; 
Thou hast no sorrow in thy note, 
No winter in thy year. 
0 ! could I fly, I’d fly with thee ; 
We’d make, on joyful wing, 
Our annual visit round the globe, 
Companions of the spring! 
Further observation and experience have 
given me a different idea of this little feath¬ 
ered voluptuary, which I will venture to im¬ 
part for the benefit of my school-boy readers, 
who may regard him with the same unquali¬ 
fied envy and admiration which I once in¬ 
dulged. I'have shown him only as I saw 
him first, in what I may call the poetical 
part of his career, tvhen he in a manner de¬ 
voted himself to elegant pursuits and enjoy¬ 
ments, and was a bird of music, and song, 
and taste, and sensibility, and refinement, 
while this lasted he was sacred from injury; 
the very sehool-boy would not fling a stone 
at him, and the merest rustic would pause to 
listen to his strain. 
But mark the difference. As the year ad¬ 
vances, as the clover-blossoms disappear, 
and the spring fades into summer, he gradu¬ 
ally gives up his elegant tastes and habits ; 
doffs his poetical suit of black, resumes a 
russet dusty garb, and sinks to the gross en¬ 
joyments of common vulgar birds. His 
notes no longer vibrate on the ear; he is 
stuffing himself with the seeds of the tall 
weeds on which die lately swung and chant¬ 
ed so melodiously. He has become a high 
liver, a “ gourmandwith him now there is 
nothing like the “joys of the table.” In a 
little while he grows tired of plain, homely 
fare, and is off on a grastronomical tour in 
quest of foreign luxuries. 
We next hear of him, with myriads of his 
kind, banqueting among the reeds of the 
Delaware, and grown corpulent with good 
feeding. He has changed his name in trav¬ 
eling. Boblincon no more—he is the reed- 
bird now, the much sought-for titbit of Penn¬ 
sylvania epicures ; the rival in the unlucky 
fame of the ortolan! Wherever he goes, 
pop ! pop ! pop ! every rusty firelock in the 
country is blazing away. He sees his com¬ 
panions falling by thousands around him. 
Does lie take warning, and reform ? Alas, 
not he ! Incorrigible epicure ! Again he 
wings his his flight. The rice swamps of 
the South invite him. He gorges himself 
among them almost to bursting; he can 
scarcely fly for corpulency. He has once 
more changed his name, and is now the fam¬ 
ous rice-bird of the Carolinas. 
Last stage of his career ; behold him spit¬ 
ted, with dozens of his corpulent companions, 
and served up, a vaunted dish, on the table 
of some Southern gastronome. 
Such is the story of the boblink ; once 
spiritual, musical, admired, the joy of the 
meadows, and the favorite bird of spring; 
finally, a gross little sensualist, who expi¬ 
ates his sensuality in the larder. His story 
contains a moral, worthy the attention of all 
little birds and little boys ; warning them to 
keep to those refined and intellectual pur¬ 
suits, which raise him to so high a pitch of 
popularity during the early part of his ca¬ 
reer, but to eschew all tendency to that gross 
and dissipated indulgence, which brought 
this mistaken little bird to an untimely end. 
Irving. 
tfrfmtltural Jeprftwtti 
THE GRITTINESS 0E PEARS. 
, The grittiness of pears is the chief cir¬ 
cumstance which diminishes their value at 
the dessert. Some are more subject to the 
affection than others ; but all are occasionally 
detoriated by it. The proximate cause is 
known to consist in the deposit of hard 
matter in certain cells of the flesh, anala- 
gous in all respects to that which gives its 
bony texture to the stone of Plums, Cher¬ 
ries, &c.' In all [these cases, the tissue is 
originally soft and pulpy, and if it were to 
remain so the whole of a Plum would be as 
perfectly eatable as a berry of the Grape. 
But in stone fruits gritty matter is gradually 
deposited within the pulpy cells of the lin¬ 
ing of the flesh, as constantly and naturally 
as phosphate of lime in the galatinous tissue 
of the bones of animals. In the Pear, on 
the contrary, there is no special part set 
aside for the reception of grit, which mani¬ 
fests itself accidentally here and there 
among the soft flesh, sometimes in large 
and sometimes in small quantities. In fact, 
in the Pear the grittiness may be regarded 
as an unnatural secretion, induced by 
unknown causes, while in stone fruits it is 
part and parcel of their nature. 
We say induced by unknown causes, for 
we are not aware that any attempt has been 
made to show out of what circumstances 
the grittiness arises, or by Avhat it is dimin¬ 
ished or prevented. We are now, however, 
assured that it is entirely owing to the ex¬ 
posure of the Pear fruit to too much cold. 
It appears that on the 16th of last Novem¬ 
ber, Mr. A. Delaville, gardener at the Cha¬ 
teau de Fitz James, near Clermont (Oise), 
exibited before the Imperial Horticultural 
Society of Paris, some St. Germain pears, a 
part of which tvere covered with spots and 
full of grittiness, while the others were re¬ 
markable for their beauty, and wholly 
exempt from grittiness. We are assured 
that both samples came from the same tree, 
and that the only difference consisted in the 
fine ones having been protected, while the 
others had been exposed to the weather 
without any shelter. In fact, M. Delaville 
is of opinion that the external spots and the 
internal grittiness were wholly caused by 
the cold rain which had fallen on the fruit 
during its growth, and had arrested the free 
circulation of sap. 
With reference to this hypothesis, he re¬ 
marks that the sorts which are most subject 
to spotting ( tavelage ) and grittiness are those 
which have the finest skin, such as the St. 
Germain, Crasannc, Brown Beurre, and 
Winter Bonchretien. The effect of aspect 
also supports this view, it being notorious 
that the affections in question are most 
common with Pears on open standards or 
exposed to the east and south, the quarters 
whence (at Clermont) the coldest rains 
always come. 
The manner in which M. Delaville pro¬ 
tects his Pears is thus described : As soon 
as the fruit is completely set he incloses 
every cluster in a cornet of paper, fixed to 
the top of the stock by a piece of rush (bast). 
This cornet must be large enough to cover 
all the upper part, so as to guard the fruit 
perfectly fronvthe direct action of exterior 
agencies. If a tree is trained to a wall the 
same degree of protection is not necessary, 
because the wall affords a natural shelter on 
one side, but where pyramid or other open¬ 
ly trained trees have to be dealt with, the 
cornet must be very wide, and the small end 
placed upwards, so as to leave nothing 
uncovered except the bottom of the fruit 
stalk. 
These cornets remain in their places dur¬ 
ing the whole season, and are not disturbed 
till about a fortnight before gathering, at 
which time they are removed, in order to 
give the fruit color and to complete the 
ripening, “just as peaches and grapes are 
unieafed a short time before gathering 
them.” M. Delaville concludes by assuring 
the public that by this simple method his 
whole crop of Pears is very fine, instead of 
a third or more being unmarketable, as is 
often the case. 
The effect of these precautions should cer¬ 
tainly be tried here, now that Pears are 
getting into the condition when paper cornets 
are first applied.— Gard. Chron. 
PACKING BUDS AND GRAFTS. 
We have on former occasions given di¬ 
rections on this subject, but have observed 
among the packages of grafts occasionally 
received, indications that the best modes arc 
not well understood, even by some intelli¬ 
gent cultivators of fine fruit, by whom errors 
arc often committed. 
Since the reduction of postage, the 
transmission of buds and grafts by mail, has 
become a great convenience to fruit raisers 
and pomologists, and the only difficulty is to 
put them up so that they shall carry long 
distances with safety. The essential requi¬ 
sites, are to secure the moisture they 
contain from evaporation, and to prevent 
bruising. 
To prevent evaporation, it was formerly 
the custom to encase them in muslin cov¬ 
ered with a coating of grafting Avax ; but 
this was found inconvenient to apply and 
troublesome in removal. The writer 
therefore introduced an improvement some 
fifteen years since, which has since been 
generally adopted throughout the country. 
This is to wrap the grafts in oil-silk, select¬ 
ing a piece large enough to cover them and 
to bend it up over the ends, so as to bring it 
down air-tight on every pari, by winding a 
fine thread around it at very short intervals 
from end to end. This forms a complete 
air-tight case, through which the moisture 
from the graft or buds can not escape ; and 
if well put up, grafts may be sent in this 
across the Atlantic without the slightest risk. 
Buds in summer being greener and more 
succulent, and the temperature being warm¬ 
er, can not be forwarded to such great dis¬ 
tances. Peach buds, and other kinds cut 
before the wood is well ripened and 
hardened, should not remain in this condition 
longer than three or four days ; but well 
ripened shoots of the pear and apple, near 
the close of the season of growth, will 
continue uninjured for at least a fortnight. 
To prevent bruising during the period of 
conveyance, cotton batting, or several thick¬ 
nesses of soft paper, should be placed out¬ 
side the oil-silk wrapper. A pomological 
friend, to whom we gave instuctions some 
years since in sending grafts, took the 
especial precaution of applying a coating of 
cotton batting first, to the grafts, and then 
encased them in oil-cloth. The consequence 
was that the dry cotton in immediate contact 
absorbed the moisture from the grafts, and 
on their arrival they were found as dry as if 
exposed to a summer sun. In another in¬ 
stance, several thicknesses of soft paper 
were used for a similar purpose, and with a 
