22 CHARACTER, HISTORY AND 



system, so far as it was practicable, in their descriptions of trees and their 

 fruits ; and they made it an invariable rule, neither to describe nor have 

 drawn, or colored, any fruit, without having samples of it before them. 

 The illustrations are remarkable for their accuracy and beauty, as the 

 ablest artists of Paris were employed, to make the original paintings, 

 engrave the plates, and color the impressions. The work was published 

 in large folio numbers, the first of which -vvas issued in 1807, and may be 

 favorably compared, in magnificence and intrinsic merit, with any which 

 has been printed, in either of the branches of Natural History. 



The zealous efforts of the London Horticultural Society, and the publi- 

 cation of its Transactions, have powerfully contributed to excite attention to 

 the science and art of fruit culture, and to multiply and extend the species, 

 by the experiments which have been made in their Garden at Chiswick, 

 and by the collection and diffusion of intelligence, in all the departments 

 of Gardening, not only throughout Great Britain and her dependencies, 

 but throughout Europe and this country. 



The Annals of the Royal Horticultural Society, of France, contain most 

 valuable information on the culture of Pears, and descriptions of most of 

 the new celebrated varieties, which have been produced in Europe, as well 

 as in this country ; but the Horticultural School of Fromont, long under the 

 direction of the late illustrious Soulange Bodin, has done more than any 

 other institution in France, to educate practical cultivators of fruit trees, 

 while the Annals, which were periodically pubhshed by Bodin, may be 

 classed among the first which have appeared in any country, for the variety 

 and extent of the information they afford in relation to seminaries and 

 nurseries, transplanting, pruning, training, grafting, budding or otherwise 

 propagating fruit, forest and ornamental trees and shrubs. 



In the works of the authors^ which have been named, and in the '' Pomone 

 Fran^aise," of Count Lelieur, the " Manuel Complet du Jardinier," by 

 Noisette, the " Cours de Culture," by Thouin, the " Traite des Arbres 

 Fruitiers," by Turpin and Poiteau, the " Cours de la Taille des Arbres 

 Fruitiers," by Dalbert, and Van Mons's account of the Belgian Pears, is 

 to be found nearly all that is of value upon fruit trees. 



From the time of La Quintinie, until towards the close of the last 

 century, there had been but few additions made to the catalogue of Pears ; 

 and they were accidental productions, rather than the creations of any 

 systematic research or artificial culture. This fact is so well estabUshed, 

 that Professor Poiteau stated, in a report to the Horticultural Society of 

 Paris, that in casting a retrospective glance over the history of ameUorated 

 fruits, whose origin was known, it was remarkable that aU of them had 

 originated in the woods and hedges, and always in the interior of some 

 province, where superior fruits were rare or unknown, and inferior trees 

 numerous. 



