PEARS, PEACHES, ETC. £5 



the gardens, many of tbem far superior to the walls. This was 

 originally intended for a table trellis, but somehow the trellis was 

 never applied, and they were trained out with rough stakes : now 

 they are so stout with age as to be capable of sustaining them- 

 selves at about one foot from the soil, and parallel therewith. 

 We had here, Beurre Bosc, Winter Nelis, Beurre Diel, Glout 

 morceau, and Marie Louise, in the highest perfection, so fine, 

 indeed, that Mr. Yates the great Manchester fruiterer, who 

 happened to call, said that he had never in all his life seen such 

 a sight. Now these Pears were planted some fifteen years since 

 on platforms ten inches deep in soil : a rather adhesive loam 

 without any admixture ; they have never received the least 

 culture at root; the soil, indeed, is hard as a footpath over their 

 roots. 



A Beurre d'Aremberg tree was planted in an imitation alluvium 

 about sixteen years since ; this tree is on a quince stock, and 

 never fails to produce good crops. It is about twenty feet high, a 

 noble standard, the stem ten inches diameter, and the general form 

 a drooping pyramid, if the term may be allowed : this tree pro- 

 duced this year more than a bushel of excellent Pears, thus 

 proving that tender French Pears may be grown as standards 

 much further north than people imagine. 



The wood on these trees, planted on shallow platforms, is, as 

 might be expected, exceedingly short-jointed and stubby, and 

 covered with spurs. All coarse breast wood is, if time permit, 

 rubbed away as produced, in summer, and every short-jointed 

 young shoot showing opposite indications left to be tied down to 

 the branch whence it proceeds. In the end of July or early in 

 August, every young shoot is pinched ; that is to say, the point 

 removed by the hand, or, if labour be scarce, the shears ; and, 

 henceforth, I hold it good practice to continue at iutervals to 

 repeat the operation : this gradually removes the incentives to a 

 fitful root-action, which, by continued excitement, throws more 

 fluid matter into the tree than can be elaborated through the 

 medium of our chilly autumns ; and the sure consequences of 

 which are an arrest of that amount of solidification in the wood, 

 which is nature's aim, and a certain concomitant of both health and 

 fruitiferous tendencies. I therefore beg again to direct attention 

 to those parts which lie at the bottom of all tender fruit-culture : 

 it may be added that our most hardy fruits have not a perfect 

 immunity from these conditions. 



As for Peaches and Nectarines, how strange it is that we still 



