242 PEAR-TREE. 



will exist for centuries, and still keep in health, productive- 

 ness and vigour. 



Propagation. " The pear may be propagated by layers or 

 suckers, but not easily by cuttings. These modes, however, 

 are productive of very indifferent plants, and are justly reject- 

 ed in favour of raising from seed, and grafting or budding. 



"From seed. This mode is adopted either for the purpose 

 of obtaining new varieties, or for producing pear-stocks. 

 The manner of procuring seedlings is the same as directed 

 for the apple-tree, page 17. Professor Van Mons, pro- 

 prietor of the Pepiniere de la Fidelite, at Brussels, has up 

 wards of eight hundred approved sorts of new pears, raised 

 from seed by himself, and M. Duquesne, of Mous, in the 

 course of fifteen or sixteen years, and selected from prob- 

 ably eight thousand new seedling fruits. Van Mons ob- 

 served to Neill, that he seldom failed in procuring 

 valuable apples from the seed ; for those which were not 

 adapted to the garden as dessert-fruit, were probably suited 

 for the orchard, and fit for baking, or cider making. With 

 pears the case was different, many proving so bad as to be 

 unfit for any purpose. Horticul. Jour., &c. 309. When- 

 ever a seedling indicates, by the blunt shape, thickness, 

 and woolliness of its leaves, or by the softness of its bark 

 and fulness of its buds, the promise of future good qual- 

 ities as a fruit-bearing tree, Van Mons takes a graft from 

 it, and places it on a well established stock : the value of 

 its fruit is thus much sooner ascertained. Horticul. Jour., 

 &c. 310. At Brussels, seedlings yield fruit in four or five 

 years ; in Britain, seldom before seven or ten years have 

 elapsed. The fruit of the first year of bearing is always 

 inferior to that of the second and third years. If a pear or 

 an apple possess a white and heavy pulp, with juice of 

 rather pungent acidity, it may be expected in the second, 

 third, and subsequent years, greatly to improve in size and 

 flavour. . New varieties of pears, and indeed of all fruits, 

 are more likely to be obtained from the seeds of new than of 

 old sorts. Horticul. /owr., &c. 308, 309. 



" As the varieties of the pear do not reproduce them- 

 selves from the seed ; as the plants furnished by layers, cut 

 tings, and suckers, are very indifferent ; and as seedlings are 

 slow in giving their fruit; it follows, that the pear is prin- 

 cipally propagated by scions and buds. These are placed 

 on pear or quince stocks, according as taste or interest may 

 invite to early and small crops of fine quality, or to later 

 and more abundant ones of inferior character. In the for- 



