48 CUE COMMON FRUITS. 



vour. The wild kind are no larger than the top of a 

 man's thumb ; but culture improves both their size and 

 flavour, though the largest of garden growth do not exceed 

 the size of a small apple. These are most commonly 

 propagated by grafting either on the pear, quince, the 

 wild medlar, or its first cousin the hawthorn, for if the 

 seeds be sown, unless they be taken out of the fruit as 

 soon as ripe and set at once in the ground, they seldom 

 germinate until the second year after planting. Varieties 

 are not very numerous, and but three kinds are generally 

 grown in England the common or Nottingham sort, 

 which are of sharp pleasant taste, but small ; the Dutch 

 or Large German, which are of greater size but more 

 insipid, yet are more cultivated in this country than 

 either of the other sorts ; and finally, the Monstrous 

 Medlar, which combines the magnitude of the latter with 

 the good flavour of the former, besides possessing the 

 further virtue of being an abundant bearer. The kind 

 most esteemed in Italy and France is a seedless sort, 

 which though small contains a larger amount of eatable 

 substance, owing to the absence of pips, besides being so 

 much less austere than the other kinds that it can be 

 eaten, when once it has attained full ripeness, without 

 waiting for the "bletting" process, and is therefore wor- 

 thy to be more generally cultivated than it is at present, 

 though in England it has not been found to be equal to 

 other kinds, its keeping longer being here reckoned its 

 chief virtue. The flowers of this kind abound in stamens 

 but have no pistil, and it is therefore that the fruit re- 

 mains seedless, though it still matures, thus proving that 

 fecundation is not essential to the production of fruit, 

 although it is to the reproduction of offspring. 



The most singular member of this family is the Japan 

 Medlar, as it is called, which was introduced into Prance 

 from Canton in 1784, but was there for some years before 

 it put forth its blossoms in the form of panicles of white 

 flowers scented like those of the hawthorn, but yet more 

 fragrant ; and it was not till 1810 that it bore fruit, the 

 produce proving to be of the size and colour of cherries, 

 and a sample having been presented to the great patroness 



