"Mr. Knight's system of obtaining new and improved varieties, depended entirely on hybridization or artificial impregnation so lightly esteemed by Dr. Van Mons. This is somewhat difficult to practice on account of natural fertilization by insects and the wind; but it has the merit of depending on a truly philosophical principle, and with very particular attention may yet prove as available for the improvement of our fruits as it has for the production of fine varieties in the vegetable and floral kingdom, or as the corresponding principle has in the crossing of the breeds of domestic animals.

"The results of Mr. Knight's experience disprove the tendency to degeneracy, inasmuch as many of his fruits, obtained by hybridization, are among the most durable and hardy varieties, as the Eyewood and Dunmore Pears; the Black Eagle, and other Cherries.

"Many cultivators, as Esperen, Bivort, Berckmans, and others, both in this and foreign countries, have sown seeds in variety, and have obtained some valuable sorts. But I am confirmed in the opinion, that the best means of producing new and excellent varieties, suited either to general cultivation or to particular localities, is to plant the most mature and perfect seed of the most hardy, vigorous, and valuable sorts; on the general pathological principle that like produces like, and upon the conviction that immature seed, although the embryo may be sufficiently formed to vegetate, yet not having all its elements in perfection, it will not produce a vigorous and healthy offspring. Dr. Lindley, commenting upon this practice, justly remarks: "All experience shows that in every kind of created thing, be it man or beast, or bird, the mysterious principle, called life, remains during the whole period of existence what it was at first. If vitality is feeble in the beginning, so it remains. Weak parents produce weak children, and their children's children are weaker still, as imperial dynasties have sadly shown." With him we believe this theory as applicable to the vegetable as to the animal kingdom.

May not a disregard of this doctrine account for the great number of feeble, sickly, early defoliated trees often found in our grounds by the side of those that are vigorous, healthful, and persistent in foliage ? Is not the theory we advocate as important in the production of fruit trees, as in the raising of cereal grains? The skilful agriculturist saves the best seed of his various crops, and selects the best animals from his flocks and herds for breeders. Why should not this law of reproduction regulate the practice of the pomologist as well as of the farmer ? Has the All-WISE and Infinite enacted several laws where one would subserve the purpose?

"To the doctrine of Van MoNs, and other distinguished writers, respecting deterioration by age, and after a variety has reached its perfection, there seem to be some exceptions. From the accounts of oriental travelers, may we not believe that the Grapes of Eschol are as perfect now as when the chiefs of Israel plucked their rich clusters three thousand years ago? and that the same variety of the Fig, the Olive, and the Pomegranate, are as perfect in Syria to-day as in the period of David and Solomon? It is worthy of inquiry whether the native Grapes, on the banks of our rivers, have deteriorated since the day when the red men of the forest refreshed themselves with fruit from those vines, and whether the Orange, the Lemon, the Bananna, and the fruits of southern latitudes, evince any more signs of decay than they did centuries ago ? In a word, whether this doctrine of deterioration is as applicable to the native as to the foreign fruit of a country?

"Why may we not expect to obtain natural varieties of the Apple, and other fruits, as durable and far more valuable than those which have passed their second centennial, as the Endicott and Stuyvesant Pears? From meteorological or other causes which we do not at present understand, particular varieties may deteriorate in a given locality, for a season, and afterwards revive; or, they may show signs of decay in one locality and flourish well in others not very remote, as the Whits Doyenne, which has been considered, for many years, by some in this vicinity, on the decline, while it is perfect in several places in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and other States. Fruit-bearing may exhaust the vital energy of the tree, and hasten decay, but still the variety may remain. We have, among fruit trees, no example of longevity equal to that of the new Taxodium, found in California, supposed to be three thousand years old. Our object is not to controvert the opinions of those who believe in the running out of varieties, whether their duration be limited to one hundred or one thousand years, but to enforce the importance of raising new varieties from seed, especially adapted to our own location".

Raising Fruits From Seeds #1

I have read with pleasure, and I hope with profit, too, your remarks on "Raising Fruits from Seeds," and the importance of husbanding "home resources." Too little attention to this important subject has hitherto been paid by fruit-growers; I trust your well-timed and judicious remarks will wake up a new and livelier interest in improving the native fruits, by a more general and thorough cultivation. There is much meaning in the word cultivation, whether applied to the heart or the mind, the garden, the orchard, or the farm. All need careful, constant, and thorough cultivation. To plant a rose, or a raspberry bush, and leave it to " cut its own fodder," or neglect it in its infancy, is not cultivation, any more than for a mother to neglect her infant offspring, and deny it the food congenial to its nature, would bo to nurse and cherish it during its helplessness, and prepare it for usefulness, and the rich fruits of a long and virtuous life. If we would hope for rich clusters of good fruit, we must not only plant and transplant, but carefully nurse, feed, cherish, cultivate; and the process must go on and on, unto perfection.

The wild flowers in our fields, and the wild berries upon our plains, in our valleys, and upon our mountain tops, are susceptible of great improvement and perfection by cultivation. These wild natives of the forest - the long blackberry, the red and the black rasp* berry - are all vastly improved in size and flavor by being removed from the forest and the field to the garden, and, under the watchful eye of the gardener, receiving food adapted to its nature, in the form of manure, and proper cultivation, doubles its size, and more than trebles its value for the table. What a luxury to the lovers of fruit is a bowl of berries plucked from the bush in your garden, planted, nursed, and cultivated with your own hands! That luxury it has been my pleasure to enjoy for a number of years, in the shape of native gooseberries, of the smooth species, blackberries, white, red, and black raspberries; they have more than doubled in size and amount of fruit, and increased in richness since taken from the woods and cultivated in the garden. The black raspberry, especially, is easy of cultivation, and is multiplied to any desirable extent by barely placing the end of a luxuriant twig, while in growth, an inch or two in the earth.

In a few weeks the top thus buried in the soil takes root - cut it six inches from the ground, and you will have a fine plant growing with great luxuriance, but upwards, and ready for transplanting the ensuing autumn or succeeding spring. I have a fine bush of the white blackberry, a native of the Green Mountains of Vermont, in great perfection, and capable of being divided and transplanted into many bushes next spring, and hope, in due time, to accommodate myself and neighbors with this delicious fruit for the table. I may seem a little enthusiastic, but, believe me, there is a luxury in cultivating and partaking of the fruits of the earth, as well as in receiving and in doing good. E. P. W. - Montpelier, Vt.

"The Spring Flower Garden," in the June number of the Horticulturist, is so much to the purpose, and the idea of planting bulbs when in full bloom, comes home so close that I should have thought you were "poking fun" at us, if I had not known the practice to be so common elsewhere. There is, however, another error very frequent at the south-west, in planting what are generally called Dutch bulbs. Many suppose because winter sets in later, and digging the garden can be done in some seasons even late in December, that bulbs may be planted later here than at the north; but it ought not to be so. These bulbs bloom much earlier here than with you, and if kept out of the ground till late, they have to bloom before they are ready (if the expression be a proper one), and the flowers will be poor. On the 23d of December, 1861, I planted two dozen Tulips, of the same kind I had planted already in the middle of October; the bulbs were, to all appearance, perfectly sound; they came into bloom almost as early as those of the first planting (only three days difference), but the flowers were small, lasted only a few days, and when I came to take up the bulbs, they were lean and lank, having none of that solid look one expects to see in a Dutch bulb.

I usually plant my bulbs in October - the fore part of November will do very well, but the only excuse for planting late in December should be the impossibility of getting the bulbs sooner. J. M. I. SMITH. - Fayetteville, Ark.