888 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
yellow, dotted with black, and it has a black head and tail, and very powerful 
jaws. It is believed that it remains at least two years in the larva state; a 
month and a few days in the pupa state ; and two months or more as a per- 
fect insect or imago. Some exceedingly interesting information respecting 
this insect will be found in the Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. ii. p. 66. and 291., and 
also in the Gard. Mag., vol. xii. | Aicidium cancellatum Sowerb. is a fungus 
that originates in the leaves of pear trees; and in moist seasons, and in close 
situations, it sometimes appears to a great extent, occasioning a premature 
falling of the leaves. There seems to be no remedy, but that of increasing the 
airiness of the situation, and this may always be done to a certain extent by 
thinning out the branches of the tree. An engraving of this fungus, which is 
commonly called the blight, together with some interesting remarks on it, will 
be found in the Gard. Mag., vol. ix. p. 32, 33. 
Statistics. The oldest pear trees in the neighbourhood of London are at Twickenham, where they 
may be seen from 50 ft. to 60 ft. high, with trunks from 18 in. to 3 ft. in diameter; and, in all probability, 
were from the nursery of Gerard’s “‘ curious and cunning graffer, Master Richard Pointer,” whose real 
name was Corbett, and who was father to Bishop Corbett, the poet. (See Encyc. of Gard., edit. 1835, 
§ 1307.) Inthe Fulham Nursery, there is a seedling pear, 50 years planted, which is 60 ft. high. 
In Nottinghamshire, at Old Baseford, there is a pear tree of the kind known as the brown domi- 
nion, which, in 1826, was upwards of acentury old. Itis 40 ft. high, with a head 54 ft, in diameter, 
and atrunk 2 ft. 3in. in diameter. From 1806 to 1826, the produce of this tree, on an average, was 
50 pecks of pearsa year. In the year 1823, it bore 107 pecks, each peck containing 420 pears; and 
in 1826 it produced 100 pecks of 279 pears each; which, when gathered, weighed 20 lbs. each peck ; 
making a total of a ton weight of pears in one year. As the tree grows older, the fruit becomes 
larger and finer; so that it requires more than 100 pears less to fill the peck now, than it did 26 
years ago. ‘his increase in the size of the fruit is, doubtless, owing to the field in which the 
tree stands being frequently top-dressed with manure. In Herefordshire, “ A very extraordinary 
tree, growing on the glebe land of the parish of Hom-Lacey, has more than once filled 15 hogsheads 
of perry in the same year. When the branches of this tree in its original state became long and 
heavy, their extreme ends successively fell to the ground, and, taking fresh roots at the several parts 
where they touched it, each branch became as a new tree, and in its turn produced others in the same 
way. Nearly half an acre of land remains thus covered at the present time [1805.] Some of the 
branches have fallen over the hedge into an adjoining meadow, and little difficulty would be found 
in extending its progress.’’ (Rep.) Being anxious to know the present state of this celebrated tree, 
we wrote to a highly valued friend, residing at Hereford, respecting it, and we have been favoured 
with the following reply :—I have been this morning to see the far-famed pear tree. It once covered 
an acre of land, and would have extended much further had nature been left to her own operations. 
It is now not a quarter the size it once boasted ; but it looks healthy and vigorous, and when I saw it, 
it was covered with luxuriant blossoms. The original trunk is still remaining; and there are 
young shoots which are only yet approaching the ground, but which seem nearly ready to take 
root in it. The tree would completely have covered the vicarage garden if it had been allowed 
to remain. It is said to have been in its greatest perfection about 1776 or 1777. There is 
another tree of the same kind in the neighbourhood. Hereford, May 18. 1836.” In Scotland, 
there are several large pear trees. Near Edinburgh, at Restalrig, in a garden adjacent to what was the 
house of Albert Logan of Restalrig, who was attainted in the reign of James VI. (of Scotland, and the 
First of England), and which was probably planted before his forfeiture, the tree, at 22 ft. from the 
ground, girts 12ft. It is of the kind called the golden knap, which, in Scotland, is generally con- 
sidered as the best kind of tree to plant, when it is wished to produce timber. Dr. Neill has men- 
tioned a number of very old pear trees, standing in the neighbourhood of Jedburgh Abbey, and in 
tields which are known‘to have been formerly the gardens of religious houses in Scotland, which were 
destroyed at the Reformation. Such trees are, for the most part, in good health, and are abundant 
bearers ; and as some of them must have been planted when the abbeys were built, they are, pro- 
bably, from 500 to 600 years old. 
¥ 2. P. (c.) satviro'L1a Dec. The Sage-leaved, or Aurelian, Pear Tree. 
Identification. Dec. FI. Fr., 531.,in a note; Prod., 2. p,634.; Don’s Mill, 2. p. 622. 
Synonyme. Poirier Sauger D’Ourch in Bibl. Phys. Econ., Mai, 1817, p. 299. 
Spec. Char.,§c. Branches thick. Buds tomentose. Leaves lanceolate, 
entire, tomentose all over when young; when adult, glabrous on the upper 
surface. Fruit thick, long, fit for making perry. Wild and cultivated 
about Aurelia, in France. (Dec. Prod., ii. p. 634.) Introduced by the 
London Horticultural Society, in 1826 ; and, in our opinion, only a variety 
of the common wild pear. 
¥ 3. P. (c.) ntva‘uis Lin. fil. The snowy-leaved Pear Tree. 
Identification. Lin. fil. Suppl., 253. ; Jacq, Fl. Austr., t. 107.; Dec. Prod., 2. p. 634.; Don’s Mill., 
2. p 623. 
Engraving. Jacq. Fl. Austr., t.107. 
Spec. Char., §c. Leaves oval, entire, obtuse, white and silky beneath. Co- 
rymbs terminal. Fruit globose, very acid, except when ripe and beginning 
to decay, when it becomes very sweet. (Dec. Prod., ii. p. 634.) A native 
of the Alps of Austria, where it grows to the height of 10ft. or 12 ft. It 
was introduced into the Horticultural Society’s Garden in 1826, or before ; 
