THE PEAE. 37 



above 20 or 30 pears which are reckoned really first-class, 

 Dochnahl's recent work describes above 1,050, and the 

 Son Jardinier, the chief French horticultural periodical, 

 says that the catalogue in that country now comprises 

 3,000 varieties, each of which, too, has about six synonyms. 

 Attempts have been made to classify these multitudinous 

 races into families, but no very satisfactory arrangement 

 has yet been achieved, and the only classification in use in 

 England is that which divides them into summer, autumn, 

 and winter pears, with the further distinction into the very 

 soft or melting pears (in French beurre'es), the crisper 

 or breaking pears (crevers), and the perry (poire'e) and 

 baking fruits. According to their forms they are described 

 as pyriform, like the old Windsor ; oblate, like the Ber- 

 gamot ; obovate, like the Swan's Egg ; or pyramidal, when 

 the lines extend upwards nearly uncurved from the broad 

 base. 



Many of our old sorts are extinct, and others are doomed 

 to the same fate, for even the popular Swan's Egg is 

 pronounced by eminent horticulturists to be not worth 

 cultivating in comparison with the more modern sorts ; 

 but a few are still welcome to our palates as ever they 

 were to preceding generations, for far from superseded is 

 our common Bergamot, long as great a favourite among 

 English pears as the Ribstone Pippin among apples. 

 Nothing authentic is known of its origin, but its antiquity 

 is undoubted, and according to Manger the name is not 

 derived from Bergamo in Italy, as many have supposed, 

 but from the Turkish word l>eg or bey, a prince, and armoud, 

 a pear, and was formerly written Begarmoud, the natural 

 inierence being that it originated in a warmer climate 

 than that of Europe, and was introduced here from Turkey. 

 It is to the French that we have owed most of our good 

 older kinds, for they seem to have had the start of us in 

 pear culture, since good sorts were known in France as 

 early as in the 13th century. Foremost among our old 

 fruits thence derived stands the Jargonelle, long since 

 pronounced to be the queen of autumn pears, and which, 

 still scarcely surpassed in flavour and quite unequalled 

 in productiveness by any of her contemporaries of that 



