76 PEAR-TREE AT HOLME LACY. [MaVCh, 



Wc have received from the intelligent and obliging gardener 

 of Holme Lacy Court the following account of the present condi- 

 tion of the tree; and his statement is submitted verbatim to 

 our readers : — 



"Holme Lacy Gardens, January 25tli, 1861, 



" Sir, — In reply to your request respecting the Pear-tree at 

 this place, I enclose a description by the Rev. J. Green, formerly 

 clergyman of this parish, and an extract from a ' History of 

 Herefordshire,' lately published, and a few remarks on the same. 

 And first I must not lead you astray by describing it as a single 

 tree. The original has no existence, not even in tradition, as far 

 as I can learn, and on its identical position it would be useless 

 to speculate : in my mind there is no doubt but that it has partly 

 or altogether fallen prostrate ;* and, as described by Mr. Green, 

 the parts in contact with the earth became rooted, and this pro- 

 cess is still going on among the prostrate stems, towards the ex- 

 tremities. These latter accessions have their connecting part 

 traceable for more than twenty yards ; but in the older trunks 

 those upright stems, perhaps the first descendants of the original, 

 have thrown off their connection, but still leaving enough to 

 prove that that connection once existed ; and one of them is imi- 

 tating its parent in parting with a limb to form another colony. 



" I cannot altogether account for the difference between Mr. 

 Green's estimate and my own ; but there would be a consider- 

 able difference in the measurement of a tree such as this when it 

 was in fruit ; and again, the space between the two larger trunks, 

 24 yards, might be included in Mr. Green's measurement, be- 

 cause he was quite aware that that part once existed, being very 

 recently cut away to obtain a view of the park from the vicarage 

 windows, whereas in my calculation this space is left out; and 

 the solitary part measured by itself being 20 yards by 10. Re- 

 port says that what is now the flower-garden at the Vicarage was 

 occupied by this tree. And at one time 30 cords of wood were 

 cut from it; and a cord is 16 feet long, 2 feet high, and 2 feet 



* I come to tliis conclusion from the fact of a tree in a neighbouring meadow 

 undergoing the same process ; it reaches along the ground no less than thirty yards, 

 and twenty-iive yards across. Thirty feet of top, which had begun to form a tree 

 nearly erect, has just fallen again, and the cattle are making sad havoc. In this 

 tree the mark of the graft is distinctly visible. Tliis is the same variety as the 

 larger tree. 



