HORTICULTURE. 319 



changed my mode of operations, so as to make the raising of seedling pears far more in- 

 teresting than merely sowing the pips of a good pear, without name, grafting the young 

 shoots from the seedlings, and waiting till they bear fruit. My method is, I flatter myself, 

 adapted to your climate, and is as follows : 



As soon as the pear-eating season commences, I have some two or three dozen nine-inch 

 pots filled with a compost of loam and rotten manure — say two-thirds of the former to one- 

 third of the latter. Some sand added will improve it. These pots are then placed on bricks 

 or tiles, to keep out the worms, in some convenient situation near the house, and in each pot 

 is a smooth slip of lath painted ready to be written on. I will assume it to be October : I 

 am eating a fine specimen of the Louise Bonne pear ; the pips are plump and brown ; I take 

 them from the core, go to one of the pots of earth, and with my finger and thumb carefully 

 press in the pips, one at a time, to about an inch deep, and level the surface with my hand ; 

 I then write on the label, say, " Louise Bonne pear, October, 1855." A piece of slate or tile 

 is then placed on the pot so as to completely cover it, and prevent the ingress of mice. A 

 few days after this I may be again eating a Louise Bonne pear ; I reserve the pips, remove 

 the covering from the pots, and plant them with the others ; and so repeat this till some 

 fifteen pips are planted, which will raise quite enough trees from one variety. The same 

 process may be repeated at other times and seasons with other species. I omitted to say 

 that, at the end of November, all the pots should be covered with mulch one foot 

 deep. The young plants from the pips sown in the autumn will make their appearance 

 early in April, if the weather be mild ; the pips sown in February or March will not 

 vegetate till April or May; the pips sown in May will probably remain dormant till the 

 following April. 



There are two methods of managing young pear seedlings. The most simple, and one well 

 adapted for those whose hands are full of gardening matters, is merely to let the pots stand 

 on the bricks or tiles, removing them to a shady place, all the summer giving them abundance 

 of water. Each young tree will, or ought to be, twelve to eighteen inches in height, by the 

 end of summer, and its stem as thick as a quill, and well ripened. About the end of Octo- 

 bei', these seedlings may be planted out in the garden, in rows three feet apart, and eighteen 

 inches apart in the rows, with labels to each sort ; and in the following April, if there is a 

 wish to bring them rapidly into bearing, each young seedling tree may be cut down to within 

 two inches of its base, and one or two scions made from it, (one ought to be enough, and 

 that made from the lower part of the shoot.) These should be grafted upon some stout 

 stocks, or upon branches of a bearing tree. Ai> excellent plan is to buy at a nursery old 

 dwarf pear-frees at a cheap rate, without names, to plant them out one year, and then to 

 graft them with seedlings, cutting them to a stump nine or ten inches in height. They will 

 soon make nice pyramidal trees, and, by being removed biennially, will come into bearing 

 quickly, and not occupy much room. Every sort should be labelled with its origin in this 

 way: "From Marie Louise, Nov. 1854," and so on. This gives much interest to the culture 

 of seedling pears ; for, while waiting some six or seven years till they bear fruit, their habits 

 will be found very interesting. In most instances, a strong family likeness to their parent 

 may be distinguished in the leaves and shoots of the young trees, varied by now and then a 

 puny, weakly young one, which will canker and die in three or four years ; and then by some 

 one or two trees in ten showing a wide departure from the parental stock, making vigorous, 

 thorny shoots, and growing as much in one year as other members of the family in three. 

 Contrary to the views of "masters" in general, it is these renegades that give the liveliest 

 hopes to the raiser of pears. I have at this moment several rows of seedling pears, five 

 years from the graft. They were grafted on old dwarf pear-trees, and have been lifted and 

 replanted twice. This has checked them, so that they are now in a bearing state. They are 

 all labelled with their origin. Thus far, I have given the most simple method of raising seed- 

 lings by sowing in pots and not transplanting till autumn. Another method is to place the 

 pots in a gentle forcing-house, either in January or February. The young plants soon make 

 their appearance, and, when they have made four leaves in addition to the seed-leaves, they 

 should be raised carefully with all their fibres, and potted into three-inch pots. As soon as 

 these are full of roots, they should be shifted into larger pots, and kept growing under glass 



