With the exception of peaches which were an entire failure, and some occasional apple orchards, the fruit season here has been a very favorable one both in respect to quantity and quality. In June and July our Meadville market was fairly flooded with strawberries, first from the far south, and then from home gardens until the price got down to four and five cents per quart. Primos and Manchesters, that would once have astonished the world, had to compete with several novelties equally large and attractive, lately introduced.

Apples, less injured by the codling moth than usual, have also been very abundant, driving the market price down from forty cents a bushel to twenty-five. An apple some years ago that measured twelve inches in circumference, would probably be characterized as being "some pumpkins ;" some brought to market here this year must have exceeded this by two or three inches. Both our farmers and our gardeners deserve great credit for their enterprise in keeping even with the times. Our orchardists are, however, chargeable with the very common fault of permitting their trees to be injured by over-production.

I thought I was thorough enough this year when I cut out over twelve hundred pears from a Seckel tree in my garden to lighten the crop, but I found seventeen hundred and fifty pears on it when the fruit was mature enough to gather in the latter part of August. It is questionable if this pear, though embraced among the early kinds which are best ripened in the house, is not frequently gathered sooner than it should be.

Sheldon, Lawrence, and Winter Nelis, all have done finely with me this year, and Dana's Hovey is larger and better than ever before. I consider it superior in quality to the Seckel.

I have been disappointed in one pear, the Le-conte. A friend gave me some grafts three years ago which made a splendid growth, and the fruit seemed very promising. It was long and smooth, shaped somewhat like a musk-melon, and left on the tree until the leaves ripened and the fruit came off easily. It soon assumed a lemon color, and looked finely, but when opened most of the specimens were discolored and decayed, and when not so, unfit to be eaten. Possibly in another climate on a different soil they may be much better. It ripens south in summer, here in October.

I think there is no department of fruit, in which the public has been more humbugged than in grapes. I have tried some fifteen or twenty varieties, and rejected them one after the other; and it makes one smile to look over old catalogues and see the eulogiums bestowed upon them when they were first brought out.

The Delaware holds its position well, but some of the bunches are the better for having the berries thinned out. Tallman and Red Wyoming are vigorous growers, and ripen their fruit early, but when ripe it is only fit for making jelly. Brighton does not set its fruit well, is more palatable than the last two, but soon spoils. Catawissa grows strongly, produces large bunches of good sized berries with a rich bloom on them, but it does not fertilize perfectly, and lacks some qualities to fit it for a table grape. Under glass Muscat of Alexandria has ripened fully this year with me without fire heat.

I wish some of your correspondents would give some efficient remedy for thrip. One cannot use burning sulphur on account of the foliage. Tobacco smoke taints the fruit. I thought I had nearly gotton rid of them last year, but this season they came back in full force, entering I think through the wire screens of the windows. Burning paper saturated with kerosene in a wire cup attached to a long handle, and passing it rapidly over the vines, avoiding the fruit, does very little injury to the foliage, and destroys many of the insects; and they can be reached to still greater advantage on a warm day when they congregate at the apex of the vinery to enjoy the heat. But what the amateur cultivator wants is something that does no injury to man, foliage, or fruit, but will fully and successfully banish or destroy the insects.

I have, at writing, got all my out-door vines trimmed to red wood; laid down and covered with leaves for the winter, and advise all of your northern readers to do the same.

Meadville, Pa., Nov. 2nd, 1885.