522 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



of iron on jaundiced vegetation, {Morose vege- 1 ticultural Society at Chisvvick, which are now more 



tale.) EusEBE Gris, Revue Horticole. 



Pears on Quince Stocks. — I must refer your 

 correspondent " Abdalonymus"tomy reply to" Con- 

 stant Reader," civen at p. 372, 1847; he will there 

 find the results of my experience, which will spare 

 my pen, but I feel that I ought to firmly contradict 

 his assertion — " It is a fact that few sorts of pears 

 will grow immediately on quince stocks." I can 

 give him a list of more than 200 sorts that grow 

 freely without double working. The Virgoleuse 

 Pear is very inferior to other sorts, the names of 

 which I have given in the letter above referred to 

 for double working ; for walls or espaliers they are 

 not "useless;" let " Abdalonymus" go to Mr. 

 Thompson at the Chiswick Gardens, and ask him 

 to show him the fine trees in the west wall there, 

 some 25 years old, and looking as if they would 

 live for a century. Some of our finest old varieties 

 of pear, such as the, Crassane and Colmar, most 

 certainly require a wall to bring them to perfec- 

 tion, as is also the case in the northern departments 

 of France and in Belgium ; but our best new varie- 

 ties give the very finest fruit from pyramidal trees 

 on the quince stock. 



It is not a fact "that pears are far more liable 

 to canker upon quince stocks than upon their own ;" 

 quite the contrary, as I can prove to " Abdalony- 

 mous " if he will come and see me. Very many 

 sorts that canker and are unfruitful here, when 

 grafted on the pear stock are fruitful and healthy 

 in the highest degree when worked on the quince. 

 I will here venture to repeat what I have before 

 written in your pages, that the " Louise Bonne, of 

 Jersey," grafted on the pear here, and growing in 

 a light sandy loam, seldom or never bears clean 

 fruit ; they are always spotted and diseased, and 

 its shoots are often cankered and unhealthy. I 

 have this month taken ofi' the heads, for the pur- 

 pose of regrafting some fine trees 15 years old, on 

 this account) and have just finished a plantation of 

 2000 trees of this sort on the quince to grow fruit 

 for Covent Garden market, only because it does so 

 well. Your correspondent does not give any ac- 

 count of his experience ; his letter seems to me all 

 empty assertion. 



Pears upon quince stocks do not " require seve- 

 ral years before they come into a bearing state ;" 

 they often bear the second year from the bud or 

 graft, and the third year they will bear abundant- 

 ly. I am not at all surprised at your correspond- 

 ent being " completely" bafiled ; he has not perse- 

 vered as I have. The fruit from pyramidal trees 

 on the quince occasionally root-pruned is not " small 

 and deficient in juice ;" the finest flavored pears I 

 have ever tasted in this country and in France have 

 been the produce of trees of this description ; there 

 is always much more piquancy of flavor than in 

 pears from walls. I can state rather a stubborn 

 fact in support of this ; I sent last October some 

 sieves of Louise Bonne of Jersey to Covent Garden 

 market. My salesman reported to me that " they 

 ■were the best ho had ever seen or tasted." 



Now, as to duration, "to die in a few years" 

 will not be the fate of trees worked on the quince ; 

 witness the healthy trees in the gardens of the Hor- 



than 20 years old. I have seen trees on the conti- 

 nent more than 40 years old equally healthy. Sure- 

 ly this is enough of duration lor any garden trees, 

 and for any man of moderate wishes. 



I half suspect that I know " Abdalonymus," and 

 that some years since he was an unsuccessful cul- 

 tivator of the pear on quince stocks, owing to his 

 employing the common pear-shaped quince, raised 

 from layers, which is a most unfit stock. He does 

 not perliaps know that there are four or five varieties 

 nf the quince, and that he used the very worst sort 

 for a stock. He sold his trees, and I should think 

 suffered in reputation. This, I fear, has made him 

 crotchety and envious. I regret to observe this, 

 and shall feci much pleasure in pointing out to him 

 the different varieties of the quince, and in particu- 

 lar that which is most favorable to the pear. By 

 the way, an error that the Portugal quince is alone 

 the proper stock for the pear has been extensively 

 propagated ; this, I think, has its origin in the as- 

 sertion of Comte Lelieur, in his " Pomone Fran- 

 caise ;" he there mentions it as being the best 

 stock, but in describing it he jrives the description 

 of the Angers quince, a variety with small and 

 pointed leaves, which strikes readil}' from cuttings. 

 The true Portugal quince has broad downy leaves, 

 and does not strike freely from cuttings ; neither 

 does the pear succeed well grafted upon it ; it is 

 rarely seen in the French nurseries, and never em- 

 ployed as a stock. 



I have above spoken of the freedom from canker 

 of many sorts of pears when grafted on the quince. 

 So much is this the case, that only the other day, 

 when looking over some very healthy free-growing 

 root-pruned trees, I was almost vain enough to 

 think that I had discovered both the carse and the 

 remedy for that perplexing disease. On one side 

 were some pear trees (not root-pruned) grafted on 

 their own stocks, which after having grown freely 

 for several years had commenced to canker ; the 

 disease indeed seemed to be making rapid progress. 

 On the other side were some root-pruned pear 

 trees, of the same age, on quince stocks, full of 

 bloom buds and health ; not a spot or speck of 

 canker to be seen on them. One of my laborers 

 was present ; I bid him dig around the first named 

 pear trees, so that I could see their roots. I found 

 them all making their way almost perpendicularly 

 downwards, through a sandy loam into a calcare- 

 ous sand, and in some places into a stifl', reddish, 

 tender clay. They were evidently ge'ting out of 

 the influence of the sun and air ; the consequence 

 is disease in the branches. 



I turned to ray root-pruned trees on the quince 

 stocks, uncovered their roots, and closely examined 

 them. Every root and fibre was near the surface, 

 ready to receive the benefits of surface dressings in 

 winter, liquid manure in summer, and the influen- 

 ces of sun and air. The consequence is health and 

 fertility. These are, I trust, facts worthy the con- 

 sideration of the physiologist. 



A few words more about pyramidal pear trees on 

 the quince stock and I have done. In the " good 

 old times" it was customary in planting common 

 gardens to stick in dwarf trees here and jthere, ei- 

 ther Willow-like one year old grafts or bushy trees 



