Year: 1862

the discussions of highest interest in
the meetings of our Pathological So
cieties are upon this fruit. With fail
ures more numerous than successes, in
planting dwarfs, people keep planting
them, determining with resolute Anglo
Saxon courage to educate themselves
into success. In its natural state, the
pear is more hardy and long lived than
the apple, reaching in rare cases the age
of four hundred years. Though an ex-
otic in this country, it is probably as
vigorous and healthful here as IN its
native cline The Stuyvesant pear tree,
still fruitful after two hundred years-ef
tbeaTing, is a good witness OF, the kardi-
mess and the long life of this fruit


The causes of failure, especially with
the dwarfs, are easily pointed out
More of them are from improper plant
ing and from neglect than from all other
causes. They are often set out upon
land too poor to nourish them. They
live, but make no new wood. They are
thrown prematurely into bearing by
transplanting, and the cultivator, pleased
with the early fruitfulness, lets them
bear all they will. The whole force of
the tree is thrown into fruit, and after
few years it is exhausted and dies
Sometimes the tree is planted too high,
the ounce stock being three or four
inches above ground, instead of beneath, /,
as it should be- The borer attacks the
ounce, and if neglected, soon destroys
it. We have frequently seen them
planted in green sward, the grass taking
all the strength of the soil, and the
trees looking much like walking canes,
years after planting. Sometimes they
are not manured at all. The demand is
for abundant compost manuring every
fall. Again, they are trimmed up as
high as ones head before they are suf-
fered to make limbs. With the com
paratively weak roots of the ounce, this
gives the winds great purchase upon
the tops Of the trees, and unless they
are staked up they are soon broken off.
The demand is for limbs near the ground,
forming pyramidal base, to rise not
more than foot year, until the struc-
ture gets beyond the reach of the prun-
ing knife.


|
of human skill, as much so as any work
of the architect If man does not
know how to build, or cannot take the
time to learn, let him eschew dwarfs as
too small business for him. Standards
are more easily reared and much longer
lived. They pay quite as well for good
soil and cultivation. They are much
longer in coming into bearing, some va
rieties requiring fifteen years of good
cultivation before they will give forth
their treasures. But when once they
break into fruit, they make up for lost
time, and are fountain Of delight to
the fruit grower, for the rest OF his life,
and monument to his memory when
he is dead. AS the season Of planting
again returns, we throw out these few
hints in regard to the favorjte fruit OF
modern times. Notwithstanding the
war and the duty Of thirty per cent,
pear trees will continue to be imported
and planted. Let the work be we'll done.
"Canard"


This word, now popularity used for a
hoax, is the French for duck, and the
origin of its new application is said to
be the following amusing sell on the
public:


To give sly lift to the ridiculous
piece Of intelligence which the Journals
are in the habit Of publishing every
morning, Cornlissen stated that an in
teresting experiment had just been
made to prove the extraordinary vorac-
ity Of ducks. Twenty Of these animals
had been placed together, and one of
them having been killed and cut up into
the smallest possible pieces, feathers
aud all, and thrown to the other nine
teen, had been gluuonous y gobbled up
in an exceedingly brief space of time.
Another was taken from the remaining
nineteen, and being chopped small like
its predecessor, Was served up to the
eighteen, and at once devoured like the
other; and SO ON to the last, who was thus
placed in the remarkable position of
having eaten his nineteen companio rs
in a wonderfully short time! All this,
most pleasing y narrated, obtained a
success which the writer was far from
anticipating, for the story ran the rounds
Of all the journals in Europe 1t then
became almost forgotten for about a
score Of years, when it came back from
America, with amplitication, which i,
did not boast of at the commencement,
and with a regular certificate of the
autopsy of the body of the surviving
animal, whose esophagus was declared
to have been seriously injured! Every
one laughed at the canard thus brought
up again, but the word retains its novel
Specification.