AUGUST. 
237 
not, from personal knowledge, state the exact year the original Ribston 
Rippin tree died. I had read the history of the tree, and had been 
told all particulars respecting it; but when I wrote the article for the 
Florist for May I had not time, if I had the inclination, to search for 
dates. I thought a statement of facts as accurately recorded as they 
possibly could be from memory, would answer the purpose I had then 
in view. 1 hope this brief explanation will satisty the writer in the 
“ Scottish Gardener.” Whilst writing on this subject, I beg to place 
before the readers of the Floi'ist the opinions of one of the best authori¬ 
ties in America, on the wearing out of races, I mean the late A. J. 
Downing, Esq. 
In the preface to his work, entitled “ The Fruits and Fruit Trees of 
America,” Mr. D. says, “ A man born in one of the largest gardens, 
and upon the banks of one of the noblest rivers in America, ought to 
have a natural right to talk about fruit trees,” and further on, in 
speaking of the great number of varieties of fruits, he says, Hence 
the numbers of varieties of fruits that are admitted here. Little by little 
I have summoned them into my pleasant and quiet court, tested them 
as far as possible, and endeavoured to p£iss the most impartial judgment 
upon them. The verdicts will be found in the following pages.” I 
make these extracts to show the writer in the “ Scottish Gardener ” 
that Mr. D. was well qualified for the task he undertook. 
The following rather lengthy extract from the appendix to his work 
on fruits, will show what Mr. Downing’s opinions were on the subject. 
“ Certain French writers, about this time, gladly seized Mr. Knight’s 
theory as an explanation of the miserable state into which several fine 
old sorts of Pears had fallen, about Paris, owing to bad culture and 
propagation. They sealed the death warrant, in like mannerj, of the 
Brown Beurre, Doyenne, Chaumontel, and many others. 
“Notwithstanding this, and that fifteen or twenty years have since 
elapsed, it is worthy of notice that the repudiated Apples and Pears still 
hold their place among all the best cultivators in both England and 
France. Nearly half the Pear trees annually introduced into this 
country from France are the Doyenne and Beurre, and the ‘ extinct 
varieties ’ seem yet to bid defiance to theorists and bad cultivators. 
“ But half the ground is not yet covered. How does the theory work 
in America? is the most natural inquiry. In this country, we have 
soil varying from the poorest sand to the richest alluvial, climate varying 
from frigid to almost torrid—a range wide enough to include all fruits 
between the Apple and the Orange. We answer that the facts here, 
judged in the whole, are decidedly against the theory of the extinction 
of varieties ; while here, as abroad, unfavourable soil, climate, or culture, 
- have produced their natural results of a feeble and diseased state of 
certain sorts of fruit; these are only the exceptions to the general 
vigour and health of the finest old sorts in the country at large. The 
oldest known variety of Pear is the Autumn Bergamot—believed by 
Pornologists to be identically the same fruit cultivated by the Romans 
in the time of Julius Csesar—that is to say, the variety is nearly two 
thousand years old. It grows with as much vigour, and bears as 
