It remains to be seen whether a seedling Pear can be brought into an earlier fruit-bearing state by being grown under glass, and gently forced, so as to give it a long season of growth. I commenced the experiment some years ago, but the cares of an active life prevented me carrying it out fully.

The most scientific mode of raising new Pears from seed, is to sow the pips of only such fruits as have had their origin, from fertilized blossoms. If T. A. Knight had not taken the old Swan's Egg Pear almost constantly into his experiments, so that most of his seedlings have too strong a leaning to it, and had taken such Pears as Glout Mor-ceau and Old Colmar, or the Winter Nelis, with some larger late Pear, and also formed other crosses, with his peculiar tact, we should most probably have had some of the finest Pears in the world. The late T. N. Williams, of Pitmaston, raised new sorts of Pears with great facility by fertilizing. Some of these partake of the qualities of both their parents in a remarkable degree; but he was not careful enough in selecting varieties to a given end, which ought to be, raising of large, hardy, late-keeping sorts.

We have October and November Pears without end; their names are legion, and serve to create distaste rather than a wish for a collection of Pears. To raise new and fine late Pears, a word or two as to the selection of proper kinds as parents may not be amiss. That fine, large, late Pear, Leon le Clerc de Laval, reckoned a baking Pear, but which in May and June becomes soft and agreeable, should be crossed with the Winter Nelis, the most delicious of all our winter Pears. The Easter Beurre which, although in France the finest of late Pears, is in England generally flat and poor in flavor, may be crossed with Beurre d'Aremberg, always vinous and racy; the Triomphe de Jodoigne may be crossed with the Josephine de Malines; and so on.

There are two methods by which fertilization may be brought about, in one of which chance is to a certain extent trusted to. This is by training the bearing branches of two Pear trees on a wall, so that the blossoms are mingled, or planting two pyramids of the two kinds of Pears selected in a situation far removed from any others. The certain method is to select a blossoming spur, or rather say a bunch of blossoms, and a day or two before they expand remove all the anthers, cover the blossoms with a fine piece of muslin, and the following day fertilize the flowers'with the pollen of the variety fixed upon to cross with. This is done simply by finding some flowers in full bloom, with the pollen perfect, and placing them on the blossoms under the muslin cover, closing it immediately, and tying it securely, so as to prevent the ingress of bees. To those who have inclination or leisure, this occupation will be found of much interest ; and to those who have not, the chance method will be equally so.

The theory and practice of the late Van Mons, which for so many years has made such a noise on the Continent, has been given in American works on fruits; but I may, I trust, be allowed to repeat it in as few words as possible. He commenced by sowing the seeds of some hardy, inferior Pear, and, as soon as the trees bore fruit, he sowed the pips from them, waiting again till the second generation bore fruit, from the pips of which he raised trees, and so on for several generations. He gave out to the world that by this method he raised all his best Pears, and that those of the last generations were nearly all good. This seems to be in unison with the, well-known fact that cultivation brings on amelioration; but his assertion that by thus raising successive generations his last seedlings became so fruitful as to bear some years earlier than the first, or those raised in the ordinary way, was a delusion, brought on, I suppose, by enthusiasm. That some out of his many thousands of seedling Pears would bear fruit some years before others, I have no doubt; but that it resulted from the system, was an error.

Let any one of your readers raise seedlings from the old Swarfs Egg Pear, and at the same time raise some from one of Van Mons' Pears - say Prince Albert, which, as being one of his late generations, ought to give seedlings wonderfully prolific, it will be found that the chances are equal about the seedlings bearing fruit when young. I am inclined to think that those from the very old Pear the Swan's Egg will bear fruit before the very new Pear Prince Albert I am also inclined to think that his system of amelioration by successive generations, although on paper attractive and interesting, was slow and uncertain, for the following reason. Some few years since, I was traveling in Belgium, and paid a visit to the garden of the late Major Esperen. I learned that he had no system of raising Pears, but that he sowed seed according to his fancy, and trusted to chance. I was surprised to find that he had raised, in a comparatively small garden, and out of a small number of seedlings, such Pears as Josephine de Malines, Bergamotle d'Esperen, Fondante de Noel, Fondante de Malines, and some others.

I afterwards saw the vast collection of Van Mons' thousands of large trees raised from seed after his system, and among them all it may be safely said that there was not one variety to surpass, or even equal, the two first-named varieties raised by chance. To chance also, and not to this much vaunted-of system, we owe such Pears as Marie Louise, Glout Morceau, Beurre Rance, Beurre d'Aremberg, and, above all, Winter Nelis; so that we may console ourselves with the idea that chance is very liberal, and the system of Van Mons not so; for, after a whole lifetime devoted to it, it failed to give him five Pears to surpass the above, or one to equal the last-named. I remember feeling assured, when first I heard Van Mons talk of his theory, that it was not tenable; for, if amelioration was progressive in seedlings raised in successive generations without crossing, and if in like manner fertility was increased by it, the Peach orchards in America would give fruit ail perfect in quality, and of wonderful fertility, - for the Peaches in some of the States are raised, generation after generation, from the stones. What wonders the fortieth generations of Peach trees ought to be! They should bear fruit even the first year from seed.

Among the hundreds of varieties of Pears with the name of Van Mons attached to them, there are some very good, although by far too many are aorta ripening in October or November; but by raising Pears from seed in America, you will have sorts better adapted to your climate, and of equal or even perhaps of better quality than the too numerous varieties from Belgium.