1869.] CULTIVATION OF HARDY FRUITS. 15 



sowing, covers the pot with a slate to exclude vermin, and the 

 operation is finished. Fifteen pips lie considers sufficient for a 

 9-inch pot. In this way he proceeds until the pots for receiv- 

 ing the seed out of doors become frozen, when he has a few in 

 the greenhouse for a like purpose, which he continues to sow in 

 whenever the fruit is ripe. He has no particular season for sowing, 

 but does so from October till May or June, as the case may be ; but 

 those seeds sown after March seldom vegetate till the following year. 

 As soon as the seedlings appear on the surface of the soil he removes 

 the slates from the top of the pot. Seedlings thus sown may remain 

 in the pots for the season, when they ought to be planted out into 

 rows, say 2 feet apart, as soon as they are ripe in the wood, which 

 ought to be about the beginning of October. The course to be 

 followed with regard to pruning is similar to that of a young tree of 

 any sort, details for which shall follow hereafter. In all probability 

 it will be five or six years before these will bear fruit. A year or two 

 may be saved by removing a scion, if strong enough, the first year, 

 and grafting it upon a stock of some age. Mr Rivers recommends 

 them to be rind-grafted " upon old dwarf Pears without names, which 

 may be bought at a cheap rate from the nursery." 



Having thus treated of the raising of seedlings, I now come to 

 speak of the stocks which are in use for grafting, which I have 

 already named. The nature of the soil and climate has much to do 

 with the stock which ought to be used. M. Du Breuil, in his 

 extensive experiments with the chalky soils about Rouen, found that 

 the Wild Pear suited best for grafting, and that the Quince was almost 

 or altogether useless. Dr Lindley has said that for light and loamy 

 soils the Quince was best, but for chalky soils the Wild Pear. I am 

 further of opinion that in wet cold localities, such as we have in the 

 west of Scotland, the Quince, although shorter-lived, is the best stock 

 for the Pear as a standard, or I should rather say for pyramids. I 

 have invariably noticed in such localities as I have indicated that 

 standard Pears, when grafted upon the Wild Pear, in the course of time 

 permeated the soil to such a depth that the roots got imbedded into 

 the cold wet subsoil to such an extent that the result was canker, 

 the dwarfing and cracking of the fruit, and latterly partial or entire 

 failure of crops. By using the Quince many of these things are 

 obviated. It not being of such a rank habit of growth as a stock, the 

 roots run and keep more on the surface, and therefore are not nearly 

 so liable to canker and decay. And further, these bear fruit much 

 earlier, are earlier ripe in the season, and the tree is handsomer and 

 more ornamental. The fruit, no doubt, is scarcely so large, but what 

 it wants in this is made up by flavour, colour, and appearance. The 



