812 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Oct. 
flr&wtoral fleprlnteitt 
Frauds of Nurserymen. 
Is urserymen have a better chance to cheat than most 
others, on account of the long time required for detec¬ 
tion ; and for this very reason their frauds are greater 
impositions, robbing time as well as money. Horticul¬ 
tural and rural improvement have been greatly im¬ 
peded by the errors which they have committed, igno¬ 
rantly as well as intentionally. A very fruitful source 
of unintentional errors has been the practice of taking 
things on trust. A young nurseryman wishes to propa¬ 
gate a certain list of fruits, or an older one wishes to 
add to his catalogue—they immediately send to some 
other nursery and obtain the trees, and not willing 
to lose five or six years to see them hear, they com¬ 
mence at once to raise and sell trees from them • 
and, like the man who borrowed his absent neighbor’s 
horse, intending to ask leave when he returned, they 
sell the trees first, and intend to prove their correctness 
afterwards. An honorable and worthy nurseryman 
showed us a cherry tree in hearing, which he had pro¬ 
cured under the name of Napoleon Bigarreau, and from 
which he assured us he had already sold hundreds of 
trees—that was then bearing a hitter little mazzard. 
Errors are in this way multiplied. We could write 
fifty columns in describing the mistakes which we have 
detected in receiving trees from different nurseries. An 
eminent individual, (now deceased) from whose estab¬ 
lishment we expected to get every sort correct, sent us, 
as time has since proved, more than half his trees under 
wrong names. These were mistakes, not frauds; and 
we have no doubt that most American nurserymen 
have endeavored to treat their customers fairly, hut 
not having seen much of what they were selling, they 
were mostly working in the dark. We question, how¬ 
ever, if as much as this can he said of European nurse¬ 
rymen, as they existed some years ago, although we 
know there were honorable exceptions—hut the excep¬ 
tions were not the rule. It appears they thought it of 
little consequence what was sent to the ignorant Yan¬ 
kees of the western woods. W. R. Prince, in order to 
prove the rascality of certain French dealers, invented 
a list of such names of fruits as he had never heard of, 
and his order was filled under those very names! We 
question if any body but Prince could have done this. 
The increase of the nursery business has witnessed a 
great improvement, in the accuracy with which it is 
conducted. Facilities for propagating from hearing 
trees have .increased; the increased intelligence of the 
community admits of less toleration of blunders j and 
the desire of a fair reputation has stimulated many to 
accuracy, to say nothing about the promptings of genu¬ 
ine honesty, of which we believe a portion of our nurse¬ 
rymen have a respectable share. Europeans, where not 
actuated by better motives, have discovered that Amer¬ 
icans actually possess shrewdness enough to know when 
they are well treated, and they find it to their interest 
to retain, if possible, what has lately proved a very 
large share of their custom. 
In connection with this subject, we wish to add a 
few remarks relative to warranting the correctness of 
trees. Purchasers have sometimes required it of nurse¬ 
rymen, and we observe lately that some of the western 
papers avdocate legislative enactments for restoring 
losses by errors or frauds. 
Now, there are some insuperable difficulties in the 
way of reducing this proposition to practice. In the 
first place, purchasers make quite as many mistakes as 
sellers; and we have known them, after a lapse of years, 
to forget and misplace lost names—to attribute certain 
trees to wrong sources—and to be quite mistaken in the 
correctness or the fruit produced, from ignorance or er¬ 
roneous notions of its character. Nurserymen can af¬ 
ford to warrant their trees, under the following condi¬ 
tions only: The trees, as soon as received, must he 
set out, and registered in a book by a careful and dis¬ 
interested person. There must he evidence preserved 
that any vacancies in the plantation are not supplied 
from other sources during the years that elapse before 
bearing,—or that the grafted portion is not browsed 
down by cattle, and that the stock does not spring up in 
its place ; and lastly, sufficient pomological authority 
must be obtained to decide all doubtful questions touch¬ 
ing the correctness of names. In most cases, all these 
precautions would be quite impracticable; and there¬ 
fore it will he best to ascertain the most reliable sources, 
and obtain trees from those sources, even if it he at a 
greater distance or at an additional cost. 
Notes on Fruits. 
The Ott Pear. —The “ ad interim report” of the 
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society makes the following 
statement with regard to the Ott pear : “ This is the 
fifth consecutive year that we have had an opportunity 
of testing the quality of this fine Pennsylvania fruit, 
which we regard as the most delicious of all summer 
pears” There are hut two other summer varieties, 
which, in our opinion, come up to the Ott in flavor, or 
nearly so; these are the Rostiezer and Tyson. 
Conestoga Cherry. —The same report gives the 
following account of this new cherry. “ It originated 
in Conestoga township, Lancaster county, Pa. Fruit 
very large, obtuse heart-shaped, slightly indented at the 
apex, dark purple, stem an inch and three-fourths to 
two and a fourth long, slender, inserted in an open ca¬ 
vity ; flesh purplish, firm; flavor sugary and very 
pleasant; quality, 5 best.’ ” 
Qualities of Various Fruits. —The following 
were the qualities pronounced by the Fruit Committee 
of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, on several 
of the older summer fruits, the scale of the American 
Pomological Congress, li good, very good, and best,” 
being taken. 
Cherries.— Buttner’s Yellow, very good, Late Bi¬ 
garreau (of Kirtland) very good; Buttner’s Morello, 
scarcely good ; Napoleon Bigarreau, very good; Graf- 
fion (or Yellow Spanish) very good; English Morello, 
best for culinary purposes. Plums —Bingham, very 
good. Pears —Manning’s Elizabeth, very good ; Ros¬ 
tiezer, best; Limon, very good; Tyson, best ~ 
bom’s Seedling, good; Bloodgood, very good. 
Dear- 
