PERRY PEARS. 151 



This pear, from one of its common names, may be supposed 

 to have originated in the parish of Bosbury, near Ledbury, Here- 

 fordshire. The original tree is said to have grown in a field called 

 Bare Lands, on an estate called "Bosbury Farm," and to have been 

 blown down about the end of last century. The variety was well 

 established in the 17th century, and in great repute. Evelyn (1674) 

 says of it, " The Horse Pear and the Bare-Land Fear are reputed 

 of the best, as bearing almost their weight of spriteful and vinous 

 liquor. They will grow in common fields, gravelly and stony ground, 

 to that largeness, as only one tree has been usually known to make 

 three or four hogsheads." (Evelyns Pomona.) 



This fruit is well represented in Mr. Thomas Andrew Knight's 

 " Pomona Herefordetisis" Plate xxvii. 



Description. — Fruit : small, turbinate, pinched in near the 

 stalk. Skin : bright green, very much covered with patches and 

 large dots of thick, pale brown, or ash grey russet, but not so much 

 so, as entirely to obscure the green ground colour. Eye : large, for 

 the size of the fruit, open, with short erect segments, filled with the 

 permanent stamens. Stalk : an inch long, slender, and inserted in 

 the end of the fruit, without any depression. 



This variety has been much planted in Herefordshire and the 

 adjoining counties. The trees have acquired an extraordinary size 

 and height, and they are much distinguished by the beauty of their 

 form and foliage. The largest orchards of this variety are now to be 

 found in the parishes of Dymock, in Gloucestershire, and Newland, 

 in Worcestershire. Very few farms on the eastern side of Hereford- 

 shire are without Barland pear-trees, showing how extensively this 

 favourite variety was at one time cultivated. Evelyn several times 

 mentions the Barland Pear, " and as no trees of this variety," says 

 Mr. Knight, " are found in decay from age, in favourable soils, it 

 must be concluded that the identical trees which were growing 

 when Evelyn wrote, still remain in health and vigour. The specific 

 gravity of the juice is i'o7o." 



The fruit, Evelyn describes as "of such insufferable taste, that 

 hungry swine will not smell to it, or if hunger tempts them to taste, 

 at first crash, they shake it out of their mouths : " but of the perry 



