132 NAT. ORDER. POMACEiE 



sugary aromatic juice, with the pulp soft and sub-liquid, or melting, as 

 in the beurrcs, or buUer Pears. Ritchen Pears should be large of size, 

 with the flesh firm, neither breaking nor melting, and rather austQfe 

 than sweet, as the wardens. Perry Pears may be either large or 

 small, but the more austere the taste the better will be the liquor. — 

 Excellent perry was made from the wild Pear. 



Varieties. Tusser, in 1573, in his list of fruits, mentions " peeres 

 of all sorts." Parkinson enumerates sixty-four sorts ; Mortimor, 1708, 

 has many sorts, and Miller has selected eighty sorts, and describes 

 them from Tournefort. In France, the varieties of the Pear are much 

 more numerous than even the varieties of the apple. The catalogue 

 of the Luxembourg contains one hundred and eighty-nine sorts. The 

 catalogue published by the Horticultural Society in the present year 

 contains six hundred and seventy-seven, which, until it appeared, the 

 nomenclature of Pears was in a very imperfect state. The new and 

 superior sorts which have of late been added to this important class of 

 fruits, are found to be most valuable. The greater part of them have 

 been obtained from Belgium, and some of them have far exceeded the 

 expectations generally formed of them on their first introduction, espe- 

 cially as regards their adaptation to this climate, in which many, in- 

 stead of requiring the assistance of walls, as all the best old sorts do, 

 produce abundantly and in great perfection on standards. A know- 

 ledge of the excellence of these new kinds has occasioned a great 

 number of the old sorts, formerly reckoned very good, to be now marked 

 as only second-rate. The sorts distinguished as being of the first-rate 

 quality are still too numerous for any collection ; the character of first- 

 rate, as relates merely to quality, could not, however, be withheld 

 from many which nevertheless will be found to deserve only secondary 

 estimation, when their properties are attended to. In a collection so 

 rich in good sorts, possessing also hardiness and abundant bearing, 

 none ought to be cultivated for the table except those of the first ex- 

 cellence. 



Propagation. The Pear may be propagated by layers or suck- 



