122 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
April 
THE CURRANT 
The remarkable hardiness and productiveness of this 
truly valuable fruit, 
have induced most land- 
owners to neglect whol¬ 
ly all care and cul¬ 
ture of the bushes. In 
order to exhibit clearly 
the difference between 
good and bad manage¬ 
ment, we annex ex¬ 
act representations of 
the size of the fruit 
taken from two different 
bushes of the common 
red currant in the same 
garden. The smaller 
bunch was was taken 
from the old mass of 
bushes, growing thick¬ 
ly, stunted, and without 
pruning or culture. The 
larger was from a small, 
Fig- 36 - vigorous, and well cul¬ 
tivated bush in rich ground. The difference in size, 
should satisfy every one of the great loss sustained by a 
want of culture and attention. 
CULTURE OF FRUIT- 
At what period of his life shall a man plant fruit trees? 
Mr. Tucker —There is an old saying that 
He who plants pears, 
Plants for his heirs— 
an adage which in one sense is doubtless true, for short 
lived indeed must be the pear tree that does not outlive 
him who plants it; but the maxim intended to be con. 
veyed by the proverb undoubtedly is, that the pear is 
so long in coming into bearing, that he who plants the 
tree can scarcely expect to taste its fruit himself, and 
consequently plants it solely for the benefit of his heirs. 
Now if this were strictly true it would afford no very 
just ground to refrain from planting, since there is more 
forecast, and more benevolence displayed in planting a 
tree for the benefit of one's heirs, than there is in hoard¬ 
ing up gold for them; for the tree will neither run nor 
fly away, and if well selected and well planted, will 
continue to bear fruit of great value, for many genera¬ 
tions, without much after attention; while all experi¬ 
ence shows that too few of the heirs of the wealthy 
have the skill to prevent gold from taking wings to 
itself and flying away. Nor would it be very easy to 
show that we are less bound to plant trees for our pos¬ 
terity than our ancestors were to plant them for us, 
since the obligation seems equally binding upon every 
successive generation. 
But the following statement will show that the mus¬ 
ty old proverb, in the selfish caution it was designed to 
convey, is entirely without foundation. In the spring 
of 1843, the writer of this article procured a large pear 
tree, and grafted several choice varieties upon it, some 
of which bore fruit the succeeding year, and several 
more the season that has just passed. In the same 
spring a scion of the Seckel pear was spliced upon the 
top of a young apple tree, three feet from the ground. 
Finding the next season that the graft had acquired 
about twice the thickness of the stock upon which it 
was growing, another small apple tree was placed 
along side of it, and united with the graft six inches above 
its insertion, in such a manner as to secure a firm union 
between the two trees. This precaution was taken to 
prevent the tree from breaking down when it should 
come into bearing. In May last, two years from the 
insertion of the graft, it was found to be in blossom, 
being then 5 feet 8 inches high. It produced 14 pears, 
four of which were accidentally destroyed; the remain¬ 
ing ten ripened. These pears exceeded by more than 
one third the size the Seckel pear is usually found to 
acquire. Several of them weighed over three, and one 
of them more than five ounces; the average w r eight of 
this pear, as seen here, or found in the New-York mar¬ 
kets, being scarcely two ounces. A friend, Mr. James 
Dixon, presented me some unusually fine specimens last 
October, one of which weighed three ounces; the ave¬ 
rage of the rest was but two ounces. 
These experiments, so recently made, if we had n") 
other facts to sustain them, would show that no man, 
who has strength and capacity to perform the opera¬ 
tion, need neglect planting or grafting trees from an 
apprehension that he shall not live to see their fruits 
himself; for here is an instance of a man, at the age of 
56, planting the seed of an apple of which he had just 
been eating; at 58 he grafts the tree with the Seckel 
pear, and at 60, finds it producing some of the finest 
fruits of its kind that had probably ever been seen. And 
in all this there is nothing that may not be readily ac¬ 
complished by almost any person who earnestly ap¬ 
plies himself to the task. The cause of the extraor¬ 
dinary size of the fruit requires indeed a little expla¬ 
nation; and this may be found in part in the extreme 
fertility of the soil in which the tree stands, (the 
ground having been highly manured for garden purpo¬ 
ses, for several successive years, frequently from the 
hen-house,) and partly by a certain degree of dw r arfing 
that results from grafting the pear upon the apple, and 
from the constriction produced by the sudden expansion 
of the graft at its junction with the stock, which ope¬ 
rates like a ligature in detaining a greater quantity of 
sap in the fruit branches. 
Nothing is more common than to hear a man at the 
very period of his life when he is best capable of doing 
the thing well—from 50 to 60—excusing himself from 
putting out fruit trees upon the plea that he is too old 
to be benefitted by it. The two following instances 
will show at how late a period of life a fondness for the 
cultivation of fruit has been practically manifested, 
and at how much later a period of life has been pro¬ 
longed, as if in reward of the deed. 
An aged lady, in the adjoining town of Greenwich, 
not many years ago. planted a peach in her one hun¬ 
dredth year, and lived to eat the first fruit the tree pro¬ 
duced. The Rev. Mr. Cobb, of Braintree, Mass., set 
out an orchard at the advanced age of 77, and w r as 
laughed at by his neighbors, who were much too wise 
to plant frees for posterity—he lived thirty years after¬ 
wards. These it will be admitted are extreme cases, 
and yet many not very dissimilar ones could easily be 
collected, were due justice done to the scattered indi¬ 
vidual enterprise of the nation. 
But however meritorious the humblest effort to im¬ 
prove and multiply the kindly fruits of the earth may be, 
and however great is our obligation to the many nurse¬ 
rymen and skilful horticulturists, as well as to the pri¬ 
vate individuals of our country, who have devoted their 
time and resources to the collection and dissemination 
of the valuable seedling fruits of our land, as well as to 
the importation of the numerous choice kinds from 
abroad, time only at present will admit of a passing al¬ 
lusion to the splendid achievments of the two greatest 
pomologists of this, or any other age; the late Thomas 
Andrew Knight, of England, and Dr. Van Mons, of 
Belgium. To the scientific and unwearied efforts of 
these truly great men, we are indebted for a great num¬ 
ber of the fruits, especially of the pear kind, now in 
cultivation. Mr. Knight pursued the direct mode of 
obtaining new varieties by cross breeding, from which 
process sprung those noble pears, the Dunmore and the 
Monarch. Dr. Van Mons availed himself of that law- 
of vegetable economy wfiiich disposes fruit, under cer¬ 
tain favorable circumstances, to a gradual improvement 
for several successive generations; a law which he 
seems to have been the first thoroughly to elucidate. 
His method was to plant and replant the first fruit of 
young seedling trees, from three to five successive gene¬ 
rations. At every successive planting the trees came 
sooner into bearing—those of the fifth generation bear¬ 
ing the third year, and nearly all of them producing 
choice fruit. Beyond the third generation in the stone 
fruits, the fourth in the apple, and the fifth in the pear, 
