A Treatise on the Insect Enemies of Fruit and Fruit Trees (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Treatise on the Insect Enemies of Fruit and Fruit Trees

No other portion of the agriculture of our country is at this time receiving so much attention as that devoted to the culture of Fruit. The growing of young trees in nurseries, as an art, has been greatly improved, and the supply of such trees is enormous. Books have been prepared by men of eminent ability and mature experience, giving all necessary information for the management of the orchard; and the fruits that have been proved valuable have been carefully figured and described.

Some men are devoting much attention to the improvement of kinds, and with most satisfactory results. Fruits that were highly esteemed a few years ago are now superseded, and amateurs hope to identify their names with better sorts; and why not '3 There seems to be no limit set by nature to improvement in this direction. The Seckel Pear was found growing wild in a hedgerow. Probably the blossom that produced the pear, from the seed of which that tree grew, had been visited by a bee dusty with pollen from another blossom, and thus a germ was fertilized, which in time brought forth this hybrid of such surpassing excellence. The science of Botany teaches us that we can hybridize as well as bees, and improvements in fruits are now brought about as the designs of men rather than as the accidents of insects. Grafting, budding, and the propagation by cuttings give us the means of multiplying these better kinds with a rapidity characteristic of the age. 'but with all these signs of progress, the supply of fruit is far short of the wants of the people. The prices are often extravagant to the consumers, and do not always remunerate the producers.

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