110 



POMOLOGICAL NOTES. 



The various opinions among your corres- 

 pondents, relative to the origin and names 

 of pears, induces me to say a few words on 

 this subject, which long experience and ac- 

 quaintance with the fruits of Europe of fifty 

 or sixty years ago, may perhaps justify. 



The French Huguenots, who settled in 

 and about Boston, in the early part of the 

 last century, were many of them men of 

 wealth for that period, and they purchased 

 house lots of considerable extent in the 

 town of Boston, and in the towns in its 

 neighborhood, which they stocked with the 

 best fruits of their native land. This fact 

 is not only matter of history, but within my 

 day ; for I can look back, and recollect dis- 

 tinctly the many gardens that were furnish- 

 ed with the largest trees of the finest fruits, 

 that were common thi'oughout the town even 

 as late as the years 1810, or even 1815, 

 after which the mcreased population cover- 

 ed the gardens, and most of the trees, with 

 their luxuriant fruits, soon disappeared. 

 There are a few solitary trees of the old 

 fruits of a hundred years standing, and 

 more left in yards, which continue to pro- 

 duce the finest St. Michaels, St. Germains, 

 Brown Beurr^s, Virgalouse, Winter Col- 

 mars, Winter Good Christians, Easter Ber- 

 gamots, Messire Jeans, etc., as fine as they 

 did fifty or sixty years ago ; but of those 

 only one old fruit garden is left, that I re- 

 collect, and that is the one belonging to the 

 late S. P. Gardner, Esq., in Summer street. 

 Here these fine fruits are all raised in per- 

 fection, on trees probably more than a cen- 

 tury old, under their proper and appropriate 

 names. 



The great variety of new kinds of pears 

 brought into existence by Professor Van 

 MoNs, and others who followed his system 

 of propagation, and the careless manner 

 that gentlemen from the several parts of 

 Europe, where they were raised, sent them 



abroad under false or incorrect names, has 

 caused much disorder in the nomenclature 

 of these fruits. From the Horticultural So- 

 ciety of London, I received, about twenty- 

 five years ago, twenty-four kinds of various 

 degrees of merit, which they were good 

 enough to send, me as a present, with some 

 plums, and twelve or fourteen kinds of 

 strawberries. As this was at an early pe- 

 riod in the cultivation of the Van Mons 

 fruits, and little was known either of their 

 quality or their names, as finally established 

 by that extraordinary man, great mistakes 

 were made, and very bad fruits, with high 

 sounding names, and many very fine fruits 

 with incorrect names, came into my hands, 

 and were cultivated by me, and by others 

 whom I had invited to come to my garden 

 for scions. Even to the present day, there 

 is a confusion and misapplication of the 

 names of the Belgian pears, that leads to 

 continual errors and great inconvenience. 

 The Napoleon was sent out by that Society 

 under the name of the Archduke Charles, 

 and by some it is still so called. This fruit 

 is now well known as an excellent early 

 winter pear. The Passe Madeleine was 

 sent to me as a first rate early winter fruit, 

 and the Duchesse de Berri and the Belle de 

 Bruxelles, with many others, as pears of the 

 first order; but when brought to bearing, 

 after several years, they proved to be worth- 

 less, although beautiful to the eye. These 

 disappointments are to be sure, A'ery useful 

 lessons, which are much needed in gardens, 

 where constant losses and disappointments 

 occur. 



But the mistakes in the names of fruits 

 are not confined to the Belgian pears. Many 

 of the fruits of the olden time are also mis- 

 named, and propagated under names not 

 known in the countries whence they came 

 or originated. Such is the fact with the 

 Black Hamburgh Grape, the true name of 



