20 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Jan. 
Native and Foreign Fruits. 
Men generally have a remarkable proneness to 
extremes. Some years ago, a few of our most 
eminent pomologists, with great liberality and en- 
terprize, imported largely of foreign varieties of 
fruits, among which were new sorts of pears by 
hundreds. Some of the hundreds proved quite 
valuable, and many more became at least fash¬ 
ionable, and nurserymen and cultivators generally 
throughout the country, eagerly sought these 
new sorts, to fill their catalogues and to plant in 
their grounds. A foreign name, thickly peppered 
with French accents, became of itself almost suf¬ 
ficient to recommend the sale of any new sort. 
But this fashion had its day. Cultivators came 
to find, after the first varnish of novelty wore off, 
that most of these new foreigners were nothing 
but simple and plain third or fourth rate pears, 
and most of them, in fact, were rejected as worth¬ 
less. Just as examples, the reader may look at 
the history of the Reine des Pays Bas. Belle et 
Bonne, Belle, dc Bruxelles, Colmar d’Aremberg, 
and the Great Citron of Bohemia. The trees 
which had been brought at great expense, “a 
thousand briny leagues,” became indeed absolute 
nuisances, at least many of them, and they were 
replaced with others having such simple home-spun 
names as Bloodgood, Buffum, and Dix. The cur¬ 
rent now set entirely in favor of the Native Ameri¬ 
can party; all foreigners were regarded at least with 
suspicion; and we have even seen, in one of our 
horticultural journals, those old European varie¬ 
ties, the Virgalieu and Bartlett, designated as 
American Seedlings, on account, undoubtedly, of 
their hardiness and fitness for our soil and cli¬ 
mate. 
We could never perceive why the seed of a pear 
grown on and dropped into the soil of France or 
Germany, should produce a sort, unfitted, essen¬ 
tially, to a similar soil and climate, in a different 
longitude. The truth is, some of our hardiest and 
most vigorous trees, bearing the heaviest crops of 
fine, smooth, and valuable fruit, and uniformly 
succeeding in a large portion of our country, are 
of those sorts whose origin happened to be on the 
other side of the Atlantic. Among these we may 
name the Flemish Beauty, Louise Bonne de Jer¬ 
sey, and Vicar of Winkfield pears, and the Gra- 
venstein and Astrachan apples. 
As a general rule, the known native fruits of 
any country, are best adapted to that country—• 
and why? Because out of many thousand seed¬ 
lings, they have been selected as the most fitted 
to that peculiar region—experience showed them 
the best adapted to it—but there might have been 
many others among those thrown aside, better 
adapted to other parts of the world. This opinion 
is proved by the fact that some foreign fruits are 
actually better here than in their native localities. 
Every fruit-grower is aware that certain fruits 
succeed in one place and fail in others; and that 
the same sorts are more likely to succeed in con¬ 
tiguous districts, than in such as are widely sepa¬ 
rated. But a difference of latitude is usually far 
greater in its results than a difference in longi¬ 
tude. Hence the northern and southern portions 
of the United States, as for example, New-England 
and Carolina, may be far more unlike than cor¬ 
responding portions of Europe and of the North¬ 
ern States. 
Experience, after all, and not mere general 
theories, must decide the fitness of all fruits for 
cultivation among us; and as an index to the re¬ 
sult of this experience, we point to the selected 
lists of the American Pomological Society. These 
lists are made up promiscuously of American and 
foreign sorts. It is often asserted that we are 
obliged to take a part of the foreign sorts from ne¬ 
cessity, our country being yet in the infancy in 
the propagation of sorts. This is quite a mistake j 
among apples, for instance, we find most of our best 
sorts of American origin, simply because America 
exceeds beyond comparison all Europe as an 
apple-raising country ■ neither has it been much 
behind other countries in regard to time, for it 
was not a long period back, that the whole cata¬ 
logue of European apples was a very meagre af¬ 
fair. Of Pears, the select list of the American 
Pomological Society, gives us more than twice as 
many foreigners as Americans, because pears in 
Europe stand more nearly than apples an equal 
chance with us, and hence the efforts there made 
in raising new sorts, exceed ours, although we 
have not been asleep on this subject. Our peaches 
are nearly all of our own producing • our cherries 
mostly are borrowed from our neighbors across 
the water. 
The opinion to which we more particularly ob¬ 
ject as erroneous, and to controvert which we 
make these remarks, is, that there is a certain de¬ 
gree of inherent feebleness or unsoundness in all 
varieties of foreign origin, and that it is unsafe to 
adopt them for extensive cultivation ; and that 
American varieties alone possess sound constitu¬ 
tions, and are therefore only fitted for long en¬ 
durance. IVe believe this notion to be fully dis¬ 
proved by the fact that a large portion of our best 
and thoroughly proved standard fruits are of this 
class, among which we may name the Madeleine, 
Flemish Beauty, Louise Bonne of Jersey, Ur- 
baniste, Winkfield, Beurre d'Anjou, Bartlett,and 
