The second valuable article from Br. J. M. Ward on Pear Culture will appear in the April number of the Horticulturist.

Dr. Ward On Pear Culture #1

Reply from Dr. Ward to the severe remark made in the Rochester Pomological Convention, has appeared in the Country Gentleman. Though rather late to help the prospects of his liberal challenge, we consider it due to the author to copy portions of it here: - "Your report of the doings of the American Pomological Society at its late session at Rochester, includes this sentence: -

" 'Allusion was made to several recent articles from a correspondent in the Horticulturist, as tending to discourage the culture of the pear as a dwarf, and some gentlemen present who had visited the grounds of that correspondent, had found that ' he knew nothing of cultivating pears on quince stocks, according to modern treatment,' as exhibited by his distorted, badly pruned trees, twelve years old.' - Country Gentleman, Oct. 9.

"As allusion was here made to myself, your readers will, I trust, pardon me for presenting a few facts on the other side of the question. The trees above referred to comprise ten rows, with twenty-five in a row, and are of very uniform size, shape, and vigor; the varieties embraced are the Duchess, Vicars, Louise Bonne, and Doyenne These rows are still entire, and each tree resembles its fellow as much as one Vicar or Duchess Pear resembles another. But they are not pyramids, for the best of all reasons, that I could not afford to grow them in the pyramidal form. The only row that was originally made to assume that form, was altered to the half-standard form, on account of economy in culture. After a brief experience, I was satisfied that the keeping of the grounds worked and cleaned by hand labor, would cost more than I should ever realize from the sale of the fruit.

"The great problem I had attempted to solve in my present vocation, was to settle the question whether the cultivation of fruit, and especially of pears, could be made profitable. In doing this, I found it all-important to keep an eye to the expense demanded in the culture of the trees. To attempt to keep an orchard of some five acres in clean culture by any other than horse labor, would demand more of an income than I possessed; and to cultivate with a horse was utterly impracticable with any other form of the trees than I have given them, viz: that of the half-standard.

"Amateur cultivators who have only seen pears growing in the nicely dressed specimen rows of the nurseryman, or on pet dwarfs in a garden, will do well to remember, in visiting my grounds, that I have no garden - my fruit is in orchards. "Had I been privileged to accompany the visitor over the orchards, he would have learned that the ' distorted trees' were the quince stocks that I had attempted to grow, and would not, and that they will soon be out of the way; trees, that with others unsatisfactory in growth, though not misshapen, have led me to say what I have in the articles alluded to against the general introduction of the quince stock for the growth of the pear. Had the charge been made that the grounds bore evidence of neglect, and portions were overgrown with weeds, I should have been silent, for the greater part of the past summer I have been an invalid and confined to the house, and as I have no gardener, but depend entirely upon the most unintelligent, because the cheapest laborers, being myself the superintendent and director, my entire farm soon gave evidence that the proprietor was 'not at home.'

"My oldest trees on quince stocks were planted, as stated in the articles in the Horticulturist, in 1849 and 1851, the first planted being now seven years old - the speaker at Rochester says twelve - but as that is about as near the truth as a 'visitor,' troubled at articles that had disparaged the dwarf-trees, could possibly approach - we proceed to remark, that the object of all fruit-tree culture is the production of fine fruit. For a number of years past, I have been in the habit of exhibiting the fruit grown on these trees, and others contiguous to them, at different State and city fairs, and never have I made an exhibition of pears that 1 have not had a premium awarded them. This year the fruit that was growing when certain gentlemen visited my grounds, was exhibited at the Brooklyn Horticultural Fair, and, by universal judgment, was declared the finest in the exhibition; the second premium, however, was awarded them, as there were less than forty varieties, the first being awarded to a collection of a hundred and fifty varieties, under a call for the greatest and best display. On one of these trees there was also grown a pear that attained to the size of seventeen and three-fourths inches in dimensions, weighing thirty-five and a half ounces.

This mammoth pear is now in the hands of the Editor of the Horticulturist, and has been modelled by him. This season's crop of pears has been taken from the trees, and either disposed of, or boxed for family use; the only variety remaining on the trees is the Vicar of Winkfield.

"Now, if ' the visitor,' or any other fruit grower, will accept the following challenge, the exhibition may satisfy some at least, that if 'the correspondent in the Horticulturist does not know how to grow quince stocks according to modern treatment,' he knows how to grow pears. I will exhibit in New York City, at any specified time before the first of December, one or five bushels of that variety of pear, in competition with an equal quantity, the growth of the exhibitor - the owner of the best grown, fairest, and largest fruit to be the owner of both. Mr. Charles Downing to associate with himself any two fruit growers (not nurserymen), and be the judges of the fruit. I. M. Ward, Newark, N. J".