SYSTEM EMPLOYED BY M. GEEGOIEE-KELIS. 709 



LXXXVIII,— SYSTEM EMPLOYED BY M. GKfi- 



GOIRE-NfiLIS, OF JODOIGNE, IN EEAEING 

 PEAR-TREES FEOM SEED. 



The extraordinary collection of new binds of Pears exLibited hy M. 

 Gregoire-Ndlis, at the International Fruit Show, on S— IS October, must 

 be fresh in the recollection of the Fellows ; and many must have been 

 puzzled to comprehend how one individual should have succeeded in 

 raising so many good kinds. Their wonder will certainly suffer no 

 diminution when it is known that M. Gregoire's plants have not leen 

 iP'afted, hiU raised on their own roots. 



It is notorious, that for one good kind raised by seed, a forest of bad 

 kinds appeal's. It is almost equally so^ that it takes nearly half a century 

 to bring a fruit tree grown on its own stock into bearing. The mode in 

 which this long protracted period of expectancy has been shortened hj cul- 

 tivators has been by grafting the young plants on older stocks, and so 

 endowing them with fictitious age. Yet M. Gregoire's life has not been 

 extended beyond the ordinary span allotted to mortals. He is not an old 

 man. No doubt he has been engaged for a considerable period in prose- 

 cuting the experiments whose results have now been exhibited ; but not for 

 a period greater than many others. His experience extends over thirty -two 

 years. He ought not, therefore, according to rule, yet to have had a single 

 crop from any of bis young trees; but the fact is, that he has tried and 

 adjudicated upon tens of thousands, and from among them he has kept 

 150 kinds as really good and deserving of preservation. That many of these 

 were so is proved, not only by the various kinds raised by him which have 

 already acquired celebrity, biit slso by many of those now exhibited, whose 

 excellence was acknowledged by the International romological Congress at 



Namur, and by those who saw and tasted them at the International Fruit 



Show at South Kensington- 



He has no"w communicated his system to this Society for publication. 

 His account is short, and to the point 



1. " He chooses Lis seeds about the middle of December 

 and January, that is to say,^when the pear is at maturity. He 

 takes the largest. 



2* " He sows them in boxes (frames) at the end of January 

 or beginning of February, and when the young shoots have shown 

 four leaves (that is, the two Cotyledonous leaves and two others), 

 he pulls them up and cuts away the tap root as far up as the 

 beard of the root (recoupe le pivot jusqu'au chevelu), and 



replants them in good soil." 



voT . n. So 



It 



