This branch of fruit-culture is so full of interest, so worthy the attention of all pomologists, and above all has been so strangely neglected of late years - indeed, since the early life of the late T. A. Knight, no attempts to raise seedling Pears have been heard of - that a few words about it may be acceptable.

For some twenty years or more I have occasionally raised Fears from seeds, and must confess that my success has been nothing to boast of; but latterly I have in a measure changed my mode of operations, so as to make the raising of seedling Pears far more interesting than merely sowing the pips of a good Pear, without name, grafting the young shoots from the seedlings, and waiting till they bear fruit My method is, I flatter myself, adapted to your climate; for seedling Pears are very apt to be pulled up by birds, the pips destroyed by mice, and, in a showery and cold April, to be eaten by slugs and snails. .

As soon as the Pear-eating season commences, I have some two or three dozen nine-inch pots filled with a compost of loam and rotten manure - say two-thirds of the former to one-third of the latter. . Some sand added will improve it These pots are then placed on bricks or tiles, to keep out the worms, in some convenient situation (away from hedges, as they harbor slugs,) near the house, and in each pot is a smooth slip of lath painted ready to be written on. I will assume it to be October; I am eating a fine specimen of the Louise Bonne Pear; the pips are plump and brown; I take them from the core, go to one of the pots of earth, and with my finger and thumb carefully press in the pips, one at a time, to about an inch deep, and level the surface with my hand; I then write on the label, say, "Louise Bonne Pear, October, 1855;" a piece of slate or tile is then placed on the pot so as to completely cover it, and prevent the ingress of mice. A few days after this I may be again eating a Louise Bonne Pear; I reserve the pips, remove the covering from the pots, and plant them with the others; and so repeat this till some fifteen pips are planted, which will raise quite enough trees from one variety.

Again, it is February; I am at my dessert; a delicious Josephine de Malines Pear gives me some fine pipe; I place them in paper (my pots of earth are frozen), write the name on it, and have a pot of earth taken to the green-house, or, in default of such a structure, to the kitchen, plant the pips as above, write on the label, "Josephine de Malines Pear, February, 1855;" then cover the pot as directed, and place it out of doors, covering it with mulch. I omitted to say that at the end of November all the pots, with their covers, should be covered with mulch one foot deep. The young plants from the pips sown in the autumn will make their appearance early in April, if the weather be mild; the pips sown in February or March will not vegetate till April or May; the pips sown in May will probably remain dormant till the following April.

There are two methods of managing young Pear seedlings. The most simple, and one well adapted for those whose hands are full of gardening matters, is merely to let the potto stand on the bricks or tiles, removing them to a shady place, all the summer giving them abundance of water. Each young tree will, or ought to be, twelve to eighteen inches in height by the end of summer, and its stem as thick as a quill, and well ripened. About the end of October these seedlings may be planted out in the garden, in rows three feet apart, and eighteen inches apart in the rows, with labels to each sort; and in the following April, if there is a wish to bring them rapidly into bearing, each young seedling tree may be cut down to within two inches of its base, and one or two scions made from it (one ought to be enough, and that made from the lower part of the shoot). These should be grafted upon some stout stocks, or upon branches of a bearing tree. An excellent plan is, to buy at a nursery old dwarf Pear trees at a cheap rate, without names, to plant them out one year, and then to graft them with seedlings, cutting them to a stump nine or ten inches in height They will soon make nice pyramidal trees, and, by being removed biennially, will come into bearing quickly, and not occupy much room.

Every sort should be labelled with its origin in this way: "From Marie Louise, Nov., 1854," and so on. This gives much interest to the culture of seedling Pears; for, while waiting some six or seven years, till they bear fruit, their habits will be found very interesting. In most instances, a strong family likeness to their parent may be distinguished in the leaves and shoots of the young trees, varied by now and then a puny, weakly young one, which will canker and die in three or four years, and then by some one or two trees in ten showing a wide departure from the parental stock, making vigorous, thorny shoots, and growing as much in one year as other members of the family in three. Contrary to the views of "parent, pastors, and masters," in general, it is these renegades that give the liveliest hopes to the raiser of Pears. I have at this moment several rows of seedling Pears, five years from the graft They were grafted on old dwarf Pear trees, and have been lifted and replanted twice. This has checked them so that they are now in a bearing state. They are all labelled with their origin, and I have made the following remarks. Among gome fifteen or twenty trees labelled "From Ne Plus Meuris," all remarkable for their resemblance to their parent, are two of extra vigor.

Among the same number from Beurre d'Aremberg, are three thorny, vigorous subjects. And this goes on in the same proportion with Bergamotte d'Esperen, Josephine de Malines, Fondants de Noel, and other new kinds of Pears.

Thus far I have given the most simple method of raising seedlings by sowing in pots and not transplanting till autumn. Another method is, to place the pots in a gentle forcing-house either in January or February. The young plants soon make their appearance, and when they have made four leaves in addition to the seed-leaves, they should be raised carefully, with, all their fibres, and potted into three-inch pots. As soon as these are full of roots, they should be shifted into larger pots, and kept growing under glass till the beginning of June. They may then be planted out in light, rich' soil; and the probability is, they will be three feet high by autumn.