190 THE MANAGEMENT OF [CHAP. VII. 



It has, however, been asserted by some gar- 

 deners, that riders on the walls, and tall stand- 

 ards in the orchard, come into bearing earlier 

 than dwarf standards, unless the branches of 

 the dwarfs are suffered to grow very long, and 

 are curiously bent and twisted to produce depo- 

 sitions of sap. Probably, however, the true 

 cause of the dwarf standards not bearing is, 

 that, in some cases, they have been plantedin 

 the deep rich soil of the kitchen-garden, in- 

 tended for culinary vegetables ; while the trees 

 in the orchard, compared with them, were in 

 poor light soil, and those against the wall in a 

 prepared border. 



There is perhaps no fruit that has been so 

 much improved by cultivation as the pear ; and 

 this extraordinary improvement has been prin- 

 cipally effected by the exertions of the late 

 Professor Van Mons of Louvain, near Brussels. 

 This gentleman, towards the latter end of the 

 last century, having turned his attention to the 

 culture of fruit trees, conceived the idea that 

 new varieties of pears might be raised scien- 

 tifically; and the result of some experiments 

 tried by him, in conjunction with his friend 

 Counsellor Hardenpont, was, that several pears 

 were obtained very superior to the kinds pre- 

 viously known: and among these were the 

 Passe-Colmar, and the Beurre de Ranz (com- 

 monly called the Beurre Ranee). Encouraged 

 by this success, the Baron Van Mons and 

 Counsellor Hardenpont repeated their experi- 

 ments every year, and thus raised above a 

 hundred thousand new kinds of pears ; and, 

 though by far the greater part of these proved 



