Still, there are some important points in fruit culture overlooked. One of the most conspicuous of these is, that varieties may be found, or, if not existing, may be origi nated, to suit every portion of the United States. Because a fruit-grower in the State of Maine, or the State of Louisiana, does not find, after making trial of the fruits that are of the highest quality in New-York or Pennsylvania, that they are equally first rate with him, it by no means follows that such wished-for varieties may not be produced. Although there are a few sorts of fruits, like the Bartlett Pear, and the Roxbury Russet Apple, that seem to have a kind of cosmopolitan constitution, by which they are almost equally at home in a cool or a hot country, they are the exceptions, and not the rule. The English Gooseberries may be said not to be at home anywhere in our country, except in the cool, northern parts of New-England-Maine, for example. The foreign grape is fit for out-of-door culture no-where in the United States, and even the Newtown Pippin and the Spitzenberg apples, so unsurpassed on the Hudson, are worth little or nothing on the Delaware. On the other hand, in every part of the country, we see fruits constantly being originated-chance seedlings in the orchards, perfectly adapted to the climate and soil, and occasionally of very fine quality.

An apple tree which pleased the emigrant on his homestead on the Connecticut, is carried, by means of grafts, to his new land in Missouri, and it fails to produce the same fine pippins that it did at home. But he sows the seeds of that tree, and from among many of indifferent quality, he will often find one or more that shall not only equal or surpass its parent in all its ancient New-England flavor, but shall have a western constitution, to make that flavor permanent in the land of its birth.

In this way, and for the most part by the ordinary chances and results of culture, and without a direct application of a scientific system, what may be called the natural limits of any fruit tree or plant, may be largely extended. We say largely, because there are certain boundaries beyond which the plants of the tropics cannot be acclimated. The sugar cane cannot, by any process yet known, be naturalized on Lake Superior, or the Indian corn on Hudson's Bay. But every body at the South knows that the range of the sugar cane has been gradually extended northward, more than one hundred miles; and the Indian corn is cultivated now, even far north in Canada. It is by watching these natural laws, as seen here and there in irregular examples, and reducing them to something like a system, and acting upon the principles which may be deduced from them, that we may labor diligently towards a certain result, and not trust to chance, groping about in the dark, blindly.

Although the two modes by which the production of a new variety of a fruit or flower-the first by saving the seeds of the very fruit only, and the other by crossbreeding when the flowers are about expanding-are very well known, and have been largely practiced by the florists and gardeners of Europe for many years, in bringing into existence most of the fine vegetables and flowers, and many of the fruits that we now possess, it is remarkable that little attention has been paid in all these efforts to acclimating the new sorts by scientific reproduction from seed. Thus, in the case of flowers-while the catalogues are filled with new Verbenas every year, no one, as we can learn, has endeavored to originate a hardy Verbena, though one of the trailing

purple species is a hardy herbaceous border flower-and perhaps hybrids might be raised between it and the scarlet sorts, that would be lasting and invaluable ornaments to the garden. So with the gooseberry. This fruit shrub, so fine in the damp climate of England, is so unsuited to the United States generally-or at least most of the English sorts are-that not one bush in twenty, bears fruit free from mildew. And yet, so far as we know, no horticulturist has attempted to naturalise the cultivated gooseberry in the only way it is likely to become naturalised, viz-by raising new varieties from seed in this country, so that they may have American constitutions, adapted to the American climate-and therefore not likely to mildew. The same thing is true of the foreign grape. Millions of roots of the foreign grapes have, first and last, been planted in the United States. Hardly one can be pointed to that actually "succeeds" in the open air culture-not from want of heat or light-for we have the greatest abundance of both; but from the want of constitutional adaptation. And still the foreign grape is abandoned, except for vineries, without a fair trial of the only modes by which it would naturally be hoped to acclimate it, viz-raising seedlings here, and crossing it with our best native sorts.

Every person interested in horticulture, must stumble upon facts almost daily, that teach us how much may be done by a new race or generation, in plants as well as men, that it is utterly out of the question for the old race to accomplish. Compare, in the Western States, the success of a colony of foreign emigrants in subduing the wilderness and mastering the land, with that of another company of our own race—say of New-Englanders. The one has to contend with all his old-world prejudices, habits of labor, modes of working; the other being "to the manor-born," &c., siezes the Yankee axe, and the forest, for the first time, acknowledges its master. While the oldcountryman is endeavoring to settle himself snugly, and make a little neighborhood comfortable, the American husbandman has cleared and harvested a whole state.

As in the man, so in the plant. A race should be adapted to the soil by being produced upon it, of the best possible materials. The latter is as indispensable as the first-as it will not wholly suffice that a man or a tree should be indigenous—or our American Indians, or our Chickasaw Plums, would never have given place to either the Caucassian race, or the luscious "Jefferson;"-but the best race being taken at the starting point, the highest utility and beauty will be found to spring from individuals adapted by birth, constitution, and education, to the country. Among a thousand na

tive Americans, there may be nine hundred no better suited to labor of the body or brains, than so many Europeans-but there will be five or ten that will reach a higher level of adaptation, or to use a western phrase, "climb higher and dive deeper," thanany man out of America.

We are not going to be led into a physiological digression on the subject of the inextinguishable rights of a superior organization in certain men and races of men, which nature every day re-affirms, notwithstanding the socialistic and democratic theories of our politicians. But we will undertake to say, that if the races or plants were as much improved as they might be, and as much adapted to the various soils and climates of the Union, as they ought to be, there is not a single square mile in the United States,

that might not boast its peaches, melons, apples, grapes, and all the other luxuries of the garden now confined to a comparatively limited range.*.

And this is not only the most interesting of all fields for the lover of the country and the garden, but it is that one precisely ready to be put in operation at this season. The month of April is the blossoming season over a large part of the country, and the blossom governs and fixes the character of the new race, by giving a character to the seed. Let those who are not already familiar with hybridizing and cross-breeding of plants-always effected when they are in bloom, read the chapter on this subject in our "Fruit Trees," or any other work which treats of this subject. Let them ascertain what are the desiderata for their soil and climate, which have not yet been supplied, and set about giving that character to the new seedlings, which a careful selection from the materials at hand, and a few moments light and pleasant occupation will afford. If the man who only made two blades of grass grow where one grew before, has been pronounced a benefactor to mankind, certainly he is far more so who originates a new variety of grain, vegetable, or fruit, adapted to a soil and climate where it before refused to grow-since thousands may continue to reap the benefit of the labors of the latter for an indefinite length of time, while the former has only the merit of being a good farmer for the time being.

ON THE DISEASES OF THE PEACH TREE.

BY W

I have been for a few years a slight observer of the disease, as it is manifested in this region, and which your correspondent, "C. E. GOODRICH, Utica," designates" the curled leaf on the peach tree." It may be that our peach trees are afflicted with a different disease from that mentioned by your correspondent, as it varies in many particulars from that described by him. And first, the trees having serrated leaves, are generally much more affected by the curl, than the glanded sorts; in some few cases, however, the glanded are more affected. But the effect on the after health of the tree, is uniformly more injurious on trees whose leaves have not glands. Again, the large uniform glanded leaves, are less liable to the curl, and the trees suffer, afterwards, less than any other.

The general symptoms of the disease resemble those described by your correspondent, with some additional ones, which I shall presently describe.

The disease is not owing to an exhausted soil. The character of our soil is threefold. On the flat, a rich black mold, with a sub-soil of clay or gravel; on our east hill, generally, a rich sandy loam; and on our south hill a heavy clay. On all these soils are to be found peach trees, varying in their age from fifteen to thirty years, and from eight to twelve inches in diameter-which are no more affected by the disease than those upon the various soils in localities which have never been cultivated until within the last 4 or 5 years.

Nature is always giving us both hints and materials for this purpose. For instance, the peach, so common in our orchards all over the middle states, does not ripen well, and is rarely seen in northern New-England. Yet in a large garden of seedling peaches, that we saw in a cold part of Massachusetts, where all the better varieties had failed, there were three or four so perfectly hardy as to bear every year the finest crops. The fruit was only second rate-but by crossing with the hardier of the fine sorts, might in one generation have been rendered both hardy and delicious.

The disease, as exhibited here, is not owing to the winter, or the changes of temperature. Trees on the east or south wall of a house, which would be more liable to suffer from such causes, uniformly escape, whatever the character of the leaves.

In addition to the symptoms mentioned by your correspondent, if the disease with him is the same as with us--if he will go into his peach orchard in winter, and examine the last years' wood—he will find, principally near the base of the branch, blotches or warts varying in size from one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch in diameter. The smaller blotches are generally round, and unbroken mostly, and looking like a blister or burn-the larger ones generally eliptical in form-the bark within the elipse entirely gone, and the woody parts bulged out, and sometimes slightly gummed. These blotches are frequently upon, and sometimes just under the bud-more frequently, however, on the branch between the buds. If your correspondent will again go into his orchard in the spring, shortly after the leaves have expanded, and the blossoms fallen, he will find, with the exception of those buds which have the blotches on or under them-the whole branch covered with the most luxuriant vegetation-the blotches, however, will be seen, as the season advances, to be gradually extending themselves in size, and those branches having many, or large ones, round the base of the stem, will be gradually encircled by a ring of dead bark; as soon as this happens, the leaves and branch beyond, all die. This occurs about the time that the curled leaves have dropped from the trees. After this, those trees which have not died, put forth fresh leaves, and make a healthy growth until the end of the season. When the months of July or August have arrived, (the precise time I have omitted to note,) if your correspondent will examine closely the wood of the current year, in places corresponding to those where he now finds the blotches above referred to-he will find pieces taken out of the young wood, as if eaten or bitten out; and if he will watch these punctures, he will find them gradually assume the appearance of those blotches which are now wanting bark. If opened with a knife at this present time, by slight and successive slices, the outer blotch removed, presents a slightly discolored surface, which increases to the center of the branch, extending frequently up the branch a considerable distance, and accompanied, near the exterior surface, with a black line, similar to that seen in the plum knot-below the blotch; frequently the wood in the center is not discolored, and at some distance above presents the same healthy appearance.

Looking at this present time along the wood of two or three years growth, he will find the same eliptical shaped marks, indicating where the same injury has been inflicted for successive years.

Should your correspondent find the marks which I have hastily and imperfectly described, I suggest whether

1. It may not be the puncture of an insect, and the blotch the nest for its young.

2. Whether the curl is not the old and long known disease mentioned and described by all authors, and particularly in DOWNING's work.

3. Whether amongst the remedies, the knife is not the most certain, and the time, at the annual shortening.

4. Whether the serrated leaf trees should not be wholly abandoned, and their place supplied with trees having glanded leaves. I have myself, almost entirely abandoned the cultivation of all trees having serrated leaves.

I have omitted to state, that in the spring, about the time the branch dies, the punctured part gums after a rain, as also the old blotches in the older wood.

Again, here, if the disease is permitted to progress, the trees surely die. I have seen many trees that have knots upon them almost as large as those on the plum.

By the way-should you deem this article worthy of publication-I would remark that the time to cut out the plum knot is the latter part of June, when the green knots begin

to appear; if then cut out ning up and down all removthe scars on my trees, but are dead or dying.

thoroughly, (that is the black line runed,) they will never return. I have not a single knot-my neighbor's trees W.

THE LARGEST DESSERT PEAR.

FEW of the French pears, imported into this coun-
try fifteen or twenty years ago, have so well stood
their ground in the public estimation, as the Dutch
ess of Angouleme. A natural seedling found grow-
ing in a hedge in a piece of woods near Angers, it has a
robust habit of growth, and is well adapted to all the
middle states, the west and the south. It should always
be borne in mind, however, that the fruit never attains
its highest flavor, at least in our gardens on this side of
the Atlantic, except when the sort is grafted on a quince
stock. Besides this, the large size of the fruit renders it
much more likely to be blown off when grown standard high,
on a pear stock, than when dwarfed on the quince.

We believe no fine flavored pear attains anything like the size of this: only the Catillac and one or two other cooking pears equalling it in this respect.

One object in referring to this variety at present, is to call attention to the perfection to which it is grown about Boston. Many cultivators there, train this variety upon an upright trellis, by which the utmost perfection of size and flavored is obtained. The cut herewith presented is an exact outline of a specimen grown by S. LEEDS, Esq., of Boston, and would not be considered of unusual size at the Horticultural Shows in that city. It weighed exactly one pound nine ounces, was of a deep golden yellow, with reddish brown specks on the surface of the skin, and excellent flavor.

OUTLINE OF A DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME PEAR, RAISED AT BOSTON.