646 



POMACES. X. Pyrus. 



some imperfections in the essential parts of the blossom. In the been properly fermented with yeast for twelve hours, makes a 

 following spring, he impregnated the stigmas of many of the very excellent bread, full of eyes,- and extremely palatable and 



flowers with the pollen of the beurre pear^ and most of them 

 came to perfection and produced large well-formed fruit. The 



light.— New Monthly Mag, June, 1821. 

 Storing the fruit. 



The fruit-room ought to be well ventilated, 



cross impregnation had not produced any change in the appear- and for this purpose it ought to have a fire-place. The fruit- 



ance of the fruit, nor was any difference in flavour discovered. room was formerly a mere loft, where fruit was kept on the 



Before he impregnated the blossoms, he cut off all the buds in floor in common with onions, with no proper means of separa- 



the corymb, except the three lowest ones, as in the former year. tion. Now, however, they are regularly fitted up either with 



Whether the result of the above-detailed experiments be such as shelves, on which to place sieves of different sorts of fruit, or 



to authorise an expectation that artificial assistance in vegetable with close shelves, for jars or boxes, &c., according to the 



fecundation will hereafter become of so much importance to various modes adopted for preserving them. The room may be 



gardeners in the instances just alluded to, as in those at present of any form, but one long and narrow is generally best adapted 



recognised of the cucumber, the melon, the hautbois strawberry, for ventilation, and heating or drying when necessary by a flue. 



&c. must be left to others to ascertain. 



The system of shelves may be placed along one side, and may 

 Ihunt) be raised to the height of six feet or more, according to the 



is frequently, through negligence, suffered to injure trees in number wanted. These shelves are formed of open work, on 



orchards, and different species of mosses and lichens those of 



gardens. 



M 



OSS 



M 



appears to consti- 



tute a symptomatic rather than a primary disease in fruit trees ; 

 it is often brought on by a damp or uncultivated soil, by the 

 age of the variety of fruit, and by the want of air and light, 

 in closely planted, unpruned orchards. In these cases it can 



only be destroyed by removing the cause to which it owes its linear, 

 existence." 



which to place the sieves of fruit, each of which should be num- 

 bered, in order to know the kind of fruit contained in each. 



Apple-tree. Fl. April. Britain. Tree 3 to 30 feet. 



21 P. nioi'cA (Willd. arb. 263. spec. 5. p. 1018.) leaves oval, 

 serrated, clothed with tomentum beneath as well as on the ca- 

 lyxes ; flowers usually solitary, dioecious from abortion ; petals 



H. Native 



length 



of calyx ; styles glabrous. ^2 . 



country unknown, but cultivated in gardens, and perhaps has 



Blights. — Whatever deranges and destroys the organization originated from the P^rus Malus. P. apetala, Munch, hausv. 



of the blossoms, and prevents the setting of the fruit, is in 5. p. 247. Malus dioica, Audib. cat. 



general termed a blight, whether produced by insects, parasitical Dioecious Apple-tree. Fl. April, May. Clt. 1818. Tree 



plants, or an excess of heat or cold, drought or moisture. One 10 to 20 feet. 



of the most injurious insects with which the app/e tree has been 22 P. Astraca'nica (D. C. prod. 2. p. 635.) leaves oval- 

 visited is the Aphis lanigera of Lin., the Eriosbma mali of 

 Leach, woolly aphis, apple-bug, or American blight. " The 



eriosomata," Leach observes, *' form what are called improperly 

 galls on the stalks of trees, near their joints and knobs, which 

 are in fact excrescences, caused by the efforts of nature to repair 

 the damage done to the old trees by the perforation of those 

 insects, whose bodies are covered with white down." Sam. 

 entym* — There is no way of getting rid of these insects, but 

 cleaning them off with a brush and water, together with ampu- 

 tation when it has been some time at work ; but even this will 

 not do unless resorted to at an early stage of its progress. The 

 caterpillars of many species of butterfly and moth, and the larvae 

 of various other genera of the hemiptera and lepidoptera, &c. 

 as Scarabaeus, Curculia, &c., attack the apple tree in common are large, of a pale red, when open semidouble 



oblong, acute, somewhat doubly serrated, pale beneath and 

 villous on the nerves, glabrous above, with the rachis puberulous. 

 ^ . H. Native about Astracan. Malus Astracanica, Dum. 

 Cours. ed. 2. vol. 5. p. 426. Perhaps only a variety of P^ Mains. 



Astracan Apple-tree. Fl. April, May. Clt. 1810. Tree 

 15 to 20 feet. 



23 P. sPECTABiLis (Ait. hort. kew. 2. p. 175.) leaves oval- 

 oblong, serrated, glabrous as well as the calycine tube ; umbels 

 sessile, many-flowered ; petals ovate, unguiculate ; styles woolly 

 at the base. I? , H. Native of China. Curt. bot. mag. 267. 

 Malus spect^bilis, Desf. arbr. 2. p. 141. MMus Sinensis, Dum. 

 Cours. ed. 2. vol. 5. p. 429. When it blossoms in perfection no 

 tree can be more showy than the Chinese apple tree. The flowers 



^ ' * ■ and the buds 



with other fruit-trees ; and on a large scale it is difficult, if not are of a deeper hue. 



impracticable, to avoid their injurious effects. Burning straw 

 or other materials under the trees has been long recommended : 



Showy or Chinese Apple-tree. 

 Tree 20 to 30 feet. 



Fl. April, May. Clt. 1780. 



24 P. PRUNiFOLiA (Willd. spec. 2. p. 1018.) leaves ovate, 

 acuminated, serrated, quite glabrous as well as the calyx ; pe- 

 duncles pubescent ; styles woolly at the base. 1^ . H. ^^ 

 of Siberia? Pyrus Malus /?. Ait. hort. kew. 2. p. 175. 

 hy'brida, Desf arb. 2. p. 141. ? Mill. fig. t. 269. The leaves 

 resemble those of the cherry tree ; they are on long P^**^ ' 



M^lus 



The flowers are white, much like those of the pear tree. 



The 



but the principal thing to be relied on is regimen ; that is, judi- 

 cious subsoil and surface soil, culture and pruning. 



Ripening the fruit. — Berard, in an essay on the ripening of 

 fruits, which gained the prize of the French Academy of Sciences 

 in 1821, found that the loss of carbon is essential to the ripening 

 of fruit; that this carbon combines with the oxygen of the air, and 

 forms carbonic acid, and that when the fruit is placed in an 

 atmosphere deprived of oxygen, this function becomes sus- 

 pended, and the ripening is stopped. Hence it results, that 



most fruits may be preserved during a certain period, by gather- fruit of the medlar, and then more palatable. ^-g 



ingthem a few days before they are ripe, and placing them in Plum-leaved or Siberian Crab. Fl. April, May. Clt. 1/ 



an atmosphere free from oxygen. The most simple process for Tree 20 to 30 feet, 

 effecting this consists in placing at the bottom of a bottle, a paste 

 formed of lime, sulphate of iron, and water ; then introduce 

 the fruit, so as they may rest detached from the bottom of the 

 bottle and from each other, and cork the bottle and cover it 



fruit is globose, when ripe yellowish coloured, but re" °" , 

 side exposed to the sun, of an austere taste, decaying like 



25 P. BACCARA (Lin. mant. 75.) leaves ovate, a'^"*^'/^,"^ 

 •rated, glabrous, length of petioles ; peduncles crowded; I ^^ 



serrated 



of calyx deciduous. Tj . H. 



Wats. dend. t. 51. Pall. fl. ross. 1. 10. 



with cement. Peaches, plums, and apricots have been kept in arb. 2. p. 141. Amm. 



Nati've of Siberia and Dahuna 



Malus bacc^ta, Dwl. 

 ruth. t. 31. Flowers white, fruii 



this way for a month, and apples for three months. (Journ. R. roundish, yellow tinged with red, about the size of \^.ll 



Jnot. xi, p. 396.) Duduit of Mazeres, has found that one-third 



of bo 



baked 



the pulp is red, and is 

 beria. 



used for making quasar punch m 



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