The delay of this article on the comparative success of the pear on the quince and its own stock, is owing, it must frankly be acknowledged, more to the reluctance we have felt to approach the examination of this subject than to any other cause. We are well aware that in what we hare to say, we shall oppose the honest views of many horticultural friends - amateurs, who have liberally fed and carefully nurtured their few pet dwarfs until the love they cherish for them is duly proportioned to the labor bestowed upon them; nurserymen and tree-growers, who, believing they were subserving the cause of horticulture, have indorsed by their name and influence the cultivation of the pear on quince, till their successful general culture in their own minds was placed beyond all question. But we must beg them to remember our disparaging remarks, if such they should be called, are the result of the observations of but a solitary individual, made simply in his own fruit orchards; and should the facts thus given not be corroborated by the testimony of others, they may be set down as anomalous experience, and if not satisfactorily accounted for from mode of culture, climate, or soil, according to the linguist's saying - "exceptio probat regulam," will serve to fortify their cherished opinions on this subject.

To render our statements more satisfactory, we shall give the age, size, and height of trees, and in some cases their annual product, not simply trusting to our memories for these data, but appealing to our veritable fruit record, commenced with our first planting, ten years since, and faithfully continued to the present time.

In Darlington's Memorials of John Bartram will be found a letter bearing date Jan. 1763, from P. Gollinson, London, to John Bartram, in which we note the following: "What I am persuaded will prevent the pear dropping its fruit, if some quinces were planted in the lower part of this garden near the spring, and graft them with the pear - it meliorates the fruit. By long experience, all our pears are grafted on quince stacks, and succeed better than on pear stocks with us." By which we infer in the moist climate of England, regard being had in planting to the habit of the quince, which delights in moist situations, and especially with their uniformity of climate, results may be obtained, which we are not warranted in looking for in our climate of dry summers with its scorching suns - and severely cold winters with its prevailing north west winds.

Although this mode of culture was thus flatteringly indorsed in England nearly a century ago, it does not Seem to have taken that hold of the public mind that it has in our country. The lamented Downing, in 1845, said: "The dwarf pear, however, it must be confessed, rather belongs to the small garden of the amateur, than to the orchardist, or him who desires to have regular large crops, and long lived trees; it is usually short lived, seldom enduring more than a dozen years in bearing." And yet such we find has been the progress of the mania for dwarf trees, in the popular mind, that now they are everywhere sought after. The amateur and the nurseryman have not only vied with each other in its praises, but multiplied their experiments in the flattering though vain hope, that our native pears universally declared beat, would be improved by working on quince, till such a state of feeling has resulted as to make it difficult for a nurseryman to sell to the uninitiated anything but a dwarf tree. Good pears are talked of - the press chronicles their excellences - now and then a sight or a taste of one is enjoyed, and somehow or other the impression obtains that nothing but a dwarf tree, a veritable pear on a quince stock, will produce such fruit.

The consequence is that our nurserymen are driven into the necessity of working upon quince everything that can be made to grow upon that stock - and the most refractory varieties by double working are thus made to grow - "whether they will or no." This necessity seems laid upon them to fill their orders; for the charge is peremptory, "Send none but dwarf trees." Pear-trees cannot be tolerated by the uninitiated; many will not accept them as a gift, for their grounds must be filled with dwarf trees. O Fashion - how inexorable art thou 1 Must thy capricious, imperious sway rule in this Eden world of horticulture, as thou art wont to do over thy votaries in the world of pleasure; if so, rest assured thy day of triumph here is short, for the period of reaction is not far distant; the signs of its speedy coming are even now visible. The disappointment at the result under the culture that nine-tenths of them will receive, after they have taken their place in the extended garden or orchard, will, we fear, bring such an opprobrium upon the few that succeed so much better upon the quince than upon their native stock, and are really so improved in character as to demand their perpetual use, as to discredit even them.

In the spring of 1846 I planted 40 Bartletts, on pear stocks one year from the bud. Of these, all live but such as have been lost from accident - have made vigorous growth, and are from 12 to 18 feet in height; their average product the past year was estimated at a bushel a piece. In the fall of 1849 I planted 10 Bartletts on the quince. Most of them were suffered to bear one or two pears the first season; they occupy decidedly the richest part of the same field with those first planted, have been highly manured, and enjoyed as good culture as any trees on my farm; half of the number have died, are less than six feet in height; their united product the past season was less than a half-bushel, and this the largest yield they have ever given. I will venture the opinion from their present appearance, no one of those now living will enter its teens.

In 1849 I planted 10 Vicar of Winkfields on quince in an adjoining row to the Bartletts; for four years they made satisfactory growth, and yielded good crops in view of their age and size, since which time most of them have declined in health and vigor - two have died - two others give indications of premature death. Forty other Vicars on quince were planted at the same time on a distant part of the same field, have made most wonderful growth, and have borne more or less every year,* and from the rapid development of the wood principle, give promise of long lives of usefulness and profit.

* The average height from 12 to 15 feet.

In the same year I planted twenty Louise Bonne of Jersey on quince, all of which are, as to thriftiness of growth, symmetry of proportion, healthfulness of aspect, and productiveness of habit, all that could be desired. These stand contiguous to the (failing Bartletts on quince - indeed all the above are on the same plat of ground, and the physical copdition of the soil, as far as the eye can judge of it, being similar.

In 1851 I planted twenty Louise Bonne on quince on another field. Great care was taken in the preparation of the soil; all the requisite conditions were secured in planting, for producing healthy, rapid growing trees, and yet to this day their truly dwarf appearance is everything else but an object of attraction to a lover of trees; have not borne in the aggregate a peck of fruit, while those planted two years previously on another field, have yielded over a half bushel a piece. Some have died - others are in the process - and all might, without regret at their loss. The cause is involved in mystery, unless it is to be found in the fact that the subsoil is a gravelly loam and shale, not as congenial to the quince as the more retentive clay substratum. One hundred Bartletts on the pear stock planted at the same time, occupy an adjoining row, and are making most satisfactory progress in the world, as well as doing the work for which they were planted.

Contiguous to these Bartletts are two rows of Onondagas, one on the quince, and one on the pear stock; those on the native stock are vigorous growing trees, forming fine heads, and commencing to bear fruit, while those on the quince are small, stunted stocks, irregular in their growth, and have borne but here and there a solitary pear. All the above described trees were obtained from the late James Wilson, of Albany, and have enjoyed the same culture with the previously named one hundred Duchess D'Angouleme on quince obtained fron Wm. Reid, of Elizabethtown, which in their thrift and productiveness have far exceeded all expectation. The better to elucidate the subject, the reader will excuse us for referring to some comments in a late number of the Country Gentleman, on a previous article, in which it is supposed I committed an error of cultivation, in giving to both trees, those on pear and quince, equal culture. My answer to the esteemed reviewer is, that the data given him does not warrant the conclusion to which he very naturally arrived.

It is true, I found my soil "emphatically a worn out one." But liberal draughts have been made upon a neighboring slaughter house yard, from which some hundreds of loads of the richest nitrogenized manure have been obtained, of which, and other appropriate manure previously described, the dwarf trees have annually had a liberal quantity forked in before mulching, which, together with the detritus of the mulch, may be considered fair treatment of the dwarf trees. If this is better treatment than the pear stocks are in the habit of receiving, an error in this direction should not be used as an argument to the disparagement of the dwarf. No! the failures above described of some varieties, that ordinarily do well on the quince, and that in other portions on my own farm have succeeded to admiration, we shall be able, we think, satisfactorily to account for, and will constitute some of our objections against the general introduction of the quince stock, except in the small garden of the amateur. These objections, together with a consideration of what kinds are decidedly valuable and enduring on quince, and which the most, and which the least so, and other thoughts germain to the topic, will be the subject of the next article, unless in your judgment, Mr. Editor, what has already been written in the examination of this subject is,so much in advance of public sentiment, as to wake up more of a storm of opposition, than should rest, even by implication, upon the shoulders of the Horticulturist.

[On the contrary, the Horticulturist professes to be a seeker after truth. If the country has gone far enough, or too far in introducing the dwarf pear, it is time we knew it. The Pomological Society Of New York, in their report, agree in the main with Dr. Ward - the pear stock for the orchard - the dwarf for the smaller garden. - Ed].