CULTURE OF THE PEAR, 19 



" Grapes long kept, yet pulpy still and fair, 

 And the rich Signian, and the Syrian pear, 

 And apples, that in flavor and in smell, 

 The boasted Picene equal, or excel." 



Pliny states, that although the culture of fruits had been carried to a 

 high point of perfection, by the numerous experiments which had been 

 made during the lapse of centuries, still it was a long time, since the 

 industry of man had enabled him to produce a single new variety. 



A taste for the culture of fruit and ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers, 

 was developed with the revival of letters, science and the arts, after the 

 long period of barbarism, which succeeded the fall of the Roman empire ; 

 but, as some of the first must have been introduced into Gaul and Britain, 

 during the many centuries that those countries were held in subjection by 

 the imperial legions, the pear was among the earliest which claimed the 

 attention of sovereigns, nobles, and ecclesiastical fraternities. It was 

 gradually extended over the whole of both kingdoms, and ultimately 

 became common, on the humblest cottager's rood of land, as well as on 

 the estates of the affluent. 



The pear is described, by the earliest writers of modern times, on rural 

 economy ; and Gerarde, a distinguished surgeon, who established the first 

 botanical garden in England, and pubhshed the " Herold, or General 

 History of Plants," in 1597, says, that " every county hath his peculiar 

 fruits ; myself knowe some one curious, who hath m one peece of ground, 

 at the point of three score sundrie sorts of Pears, and those exceeding 

 good ; not doubting but, if his mind had been to seek after multitudes, he 

 might have gotten together the like number of those of worsse kindes. 

 Master Richard Pointer, has them all growing, in his ground at Twicknam, 

 near London, who is a most cunning and curious grafter and planter, of 

 aU manner of rare fruits; and also in the ground of a excellent grafter 

 and painful planter. Master Henry Banbury, of Touthill street, neere vnto 

 Westminster ; and like wise in the ground of a diligent and most affec- 

 tionate louer of plants, Master Warner, neere Hornsey Down ; and in 

 divers other grounds about London." 



MiUer, who was a celebrated botanist and gardener, and author of the 

 " Gardener's and Florist's Dictionary," which was published in 1724, 

 enumerates eighty varieties of pears which were cultivated in his day. 



To La Nostre may be given the precedence in ornamental cultivation ; 

 but he was also ermnent in aU the branches of horticulture. He was 

 brought into notice by Fauquet, for whom he laid out the magnificent 

 gardens of Vaux-la-Vicompte, when he invented and introduced those 

 grottoes, labyrmths, terraces, covered walks, canals, cascades and jets 

 d'eau, which were deemed wonders during that period of the formal art 

 of rural embellishment, which preceded the style of landscape gardening. 



