PROPAGATION AND CULTURE. 



545 



Fig. 364. 



bearer, and the fruit most excellent. Swan's-egg, a handsome 

 pyramidal tree, and an excellent bearer, but the fruit of only second- 

 rate merit. The Eloho, a Scotch variety, with a fastigiate head 

 almost like that of a Lombardy poplar, but the fruit of little value ; 

 and the Beurre Diel, a handsome 

 and somewhat fastigiate tree, a 

 great bearer, and the fruit excellent. 

 Such varieties as the Louise Bonne 

 of Jersey, Maria Louise, Beurre de 

 Capiaumont, and Colmar's Van 

 Mons ; indeed, with care almost 

 any of the above dessert varieties 

 may be trained into handsome 

 conical forms for forming avenues 

 along the central or side walks of 

 kitchen gardens. 



The propagation, nursery cul- 

 ture, and choice of plants are much 

 the same for the pear as for the 

 apple ; but the pear is never propa- 

 gated by cuttings, as they root with 

 difficulty, and as it is oftener re- 

 quired for walls than the apple, it 

 is more frequently flat-trained for 

 one, two, or three years in the 

 nursery. The pear is grafted or 

 budded on stocks raised from seeds 

 of the wild pear, or from any strong 

 upright-growing kind, when the ob- 

 ject is large and durable plants ; and 

 when dwarfs or conical trees are to 

 be produced, the stock used is the 

 quince, which is propagated for that 

 purpose by layers. The mountain 

 ash, the medlar, the wild service, the 

 white beam, the common thorn, and 

 the crab apple, have also been used 

 as stocks for the pear ; and hence, wherever there is a thorn hedge, or a 

 wood or plantation containing white service trees, white beam trees, 

 or the mountain ash, pear-trees may be speedily grown in abundance. 

 Grafting on the mountain ash is said to retard the blossoming of the 

 trees, and thus adapt them for a climate where there is danger from 

 spring frosts ; while the flesh and flavour of the pear is said not to be 

 affected. Grafting the pear on the thorn is known to bring it into 

 very early bearing, and to produce thriving trees on a strong clayey 

 soil, where neither stocks of the wild pear nor the quince would thrive. 

 The thorn stock, however, is said to render the fruit smaller and 

 harder. When the thorn is grafted either with the apple or pear, the 

 scions or buds require to be inserted as near the root of the stock as 



N N 



A pyramidal pear-tree. 



