ROSE TRIBE 255 



tree, says, "An idea of its superior size may be formed from the fact, that 

 in the same county an acre of ground is usually planted with thirty-two 

 trees, which in a good soil produce annually, when full grown, twenty gallons 

 of perry each. So large a quantity as a hogshead from one tree is very 

 unusual." 



Though perry is less prized now than in former days, yet the pear retains 

 its eminence as a valued fruit. The varieties which culture has produced 

 from our harsh wild Pear are almost iinuimerablo, and above six hundred 

 were enumerated some years since. One of them, the Choke or Iron Pear, 

 well deserves to be so called when growing wild, or almost so, but when care- 

 fully treated it loses all its hardness. In few plants can we trace the value 

 of horticultural skill more than in this, for all the numerous baking and 

 dessert pears have come from a fruit which would not even tempt one who 

 was hungry enough to feed on blackberries and hips. The Continental 

 pears are generally superior to those grown in Britain, but, according to 

 Marco Polo, the pears of China far exceed any known in this land, for they 

 are said to weigh ten pounds each, and their white pulp}'^ interior to be both 

 fragrant and delicious. 



We sometimes hear of the Australian Pear-tree {Xylomdum), but Colonel 

 Mundy's description of its produce is not very inviting. The various common 

 trees, he says, having been named by savages, have not always very suitable 

 appellations. Thus, he remai'ks, that the swamp-oak has the aspect of a laurel, 

 and Pomona herself Avould indignantly disown the Apple-tree, for there is 

 not a semblance of a pippin in its tufted branches, though a shingle of the 

 beef-wood looks precisely like a beef-steak. The cherry-tree resembles a 

 cypress, but is of a tenderer green, bearing a worthless little berry having 

 its stone or seed outside, hence its name of Exocarpus. The Australian 

 pear, then, is no pear, but a pear-shape of solid wood, hard as heart 

 of oak. Nothing short of a mallet will break it, yet for the procreation 

 of its kind its inedible body spontaneously and gently opens to drop out the 

 two winged seeds. 



2. Crab Apple (P. mdlus). — Leaves simple, egg-shaped, serrated; flowers 

 in a sessile umbel ; styles combined below ; fruit with a hollow beneath. 

 Plant perennial. The Wild Apple is a small spreading tree, bearing in May 

 its rich rosy tinted clusters of flowers. In later months the small sour 

 " l)lushing crab " ornaments the bough. The sourness of the crab is well 

 known enough to have originated a popular proverb. The fruit both of the 

 wild and cultivated Apple-trees abounds with malic acid, which is in the sour 

 or sweet sorts more or less predominant, and which mingles with larger or 

 smaller proportions of sugar, gum, essential oil, and bland pulpy material. 

 The expressed juice of the unripe Crab Apple is exceedingly -sour, and in 

 times when vinegar was commonly employed in making whey, syllal)ub, 

 or other confectionery, the fruit was often gathered to be used instead. 

 Vinegar made from this crab is still prized in villages as an application 

 to cure sprains and scalds, and to curdle the whey used as medicine for colds. 

 The juice, too, is imagined to be a good cosmetic. 



Our wild fruit tree, though ofl'ering little woi'th in its produce, is very 

 serviceable both in this country and on the Continent, for on this stock have 



