The question of profit in the cultivation of any article, whether it be grain or fruit, is the one to which interest mostly attaches. In the present number, our friend, Lewis F. Allen, in his peculiarly forcible way, and with an array of strong arguments, attempts the solution of the pear problem in a mode which will be received by some as truth, by others with grains of allowance. If pear culture on a large scale, as a dependable crop for the support of a family, is not to be recommended, this fruit is too popular and too excellent to be allowed to be neglected; it is a very good and sometimes very profitable addition to market farming. A few trees, in situations where they are in the way of nothing else, will often give clever returns in money. They ought to be of good looking kinds, and the fruit should be exhibited in its best state to the purchaser at the moment almost that it is fit for consumption. In gardens of even small extent room can be found for a few pear-trees, which may be so planted as to oast little or no shade on vegetable beds, or in corners where they can receive proper attention.

No garden is complete without them; no family in the country or a village should be contented unless they can have a share of this fine fruit, Just as everybody has a grape-vine. In situations where the raiser can retail his product, we can believe in any amount of profit which has been received by successful cultivators around Boston, in which latitude Mr. Allen admits with perfect candor that large profits, the result of great success, have been realised.

We think that one or two elements in this controverted matter have been too little taken into the account, and may be referred to as points that are yet to be more fully understood. In the Report of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, which we abridged in February, page 89, it is stated that a grower has ready sale for those pears having a russety skin, while those of green skin could not be disposed of; to this end he has to prepare them for the customer's eye by a sweating process there described; " while Mr. Gordon's Bart-letts were yielding him ten dollars a bushel, other wagons, by the side of his, had pears of the same variety, equally as Urge, but, in consequence of retaining a green skin, were offered at three dollars a bushel." Here is testimony that is sufficient to account for all the differences of opinion as to profit. If one man can get ten dollars a bushel, and his neighbor only three, while the difference of the cost is so small as in this sweating process, the whole question of profit turns upon one circumstance. Testimony delivered before a jury, as it would be given by one vender, would create a verdict of profitable, while the whole would be overset by the sworn to words of the next neighbor with the very same fruit, and the jury might say unprofitable.

Our readers must take these things into consideration; pear culture is advancing; better kinds, better understood trimming, keeping, and now by sweating, will give to many new cause for perseverance, notwithstanding the discouragements of others, whose opinions, recorded in our columns, it is equally the duty of an impartial journal to promulgate, with the results obtained by others more favorably situated. Colonel Wilder assures us that in his neighborhood nine hundred dollars have been received from the produce of an acre and a quarter of pears. This extraordinary result it should be the duty, the pleasure, and the amusement of others to emulate. The secret, if there were any, is as well known, thanks to our pomologists, as the best mode of cultivating any other fruit; trees in millions have been set out in every direction, but we hear of no similar profits except near Boston. Have the Bostonians been educated to love pears better than any other citizens, so that they will give higher prices than are to be had in other places? Is it the sweating? It would appear that this is the matter, for the difference mi Boston between a bushel of sweated pears and a bushel of green skinned fellows, is so great as to be quite amazing.

We can see, in imagination, the torture of the owner of the green-skinned Bartletts as he counted his three dollars against his neighbor's ten, the name of the latter Mr. John Gordon, of Brighton; that of the owner of the unsweated article not given.

Time enough has elapsed, trees enough have been planted, exhibitions enough have been made, and our parish is yet as a whole unpeared. The amateur and small gardener can generally enjoy this fruit in moderation, but for profitable culture, in our own neighborhood at least, we have yet to see it. In Dr. Warder's book he asserts that the Osage orange does not sucker; here it does; in Ohio it does not exhaust the neighboring land; here it does; perhaps in Ohio the soil is so deep that the roots go downwards, while here they seek pasture near the surface. Such differences may and do exist; let us therefore cultivate in each climate what thai climate is adapted to, and above all, let Boston send this way some of her fine pears, for philadelphians, as a people, have yet to know how a good pear tastes. They will be contented with the three dollar Bartletts, as ten dollars is high, and the freight is to be added.

In allowing both sides of this interesting question to be discussed in ear pages, we can hare no object but the elucidation of the truth. Whatever may be found regarding the profitable culture of the pear, one fact is very conspicuously obvious, and that is, the amateur and the gardener and fanner are materially benefited by the knowledge of and the introduction of the best kinds, and how to cultivate them. The mania which has raged on the subject has thus had its advantages, and it will not be laid till we know all about it and the climates which are to supply the more unproductive districts.

We shall insert next month an essay on Dwarf Pear Culture from an English point of view, by our correspondent T. Rivers, of Sawbridgeworth, Herts, highly eulogising the quince stock for garden culture.

Pear Culture #1

We shall soon begin a series of "Hints on Pear Culture," and alternate these with our present series on the Grape. The Pear is a very important object of culture; and we have among our readers a large number of beginners to whom plain, practical directions for growing the Pear must prove acceptable. Other fruits will also claim our attention.