PEARS. G6'5 



cavity. Flesh, white, fine-grained, tender, buttery, and melting, with 

 a rich, sweet, and delicious flavour, and powerful musky aroma. 



A dessert pear of the highest merit ; ripe in August and September, 

 but keeps but a short time. It should be gathered before it becomes 

 yellow, otherwise it speedily decays. The tree is hardy and vigorous, 

 but not a regular or abundant bearer, on which account its cultivation 

 is now much more limited among the London market gardeners. At 

 Teddington Mr. Blackmore says "it is small and spotted, and the 

 aroma is always coarse." 



This esteemed pear was raised a short time previous to 1770, by a person of the 

 name of Wheeler, a schoolmaster at AMermaston, in Berkshire, from whom it was 

 obtained by Williams, the nurseryman at Turnham Green, Middlesex, and being 

 by him first distributed, it received the name it now bears. Another account states 

 that the name of the schoolmaster who raised it was Stair, and even at the present 

 time it is known at AMermaston as " Stair's Pear." In 1799 it was introduced to 

 America by Mr. Enoch Bartlett, of Dorchester, near Boston, and the name being 

 lost, it has'ever since been known by the name of the Bartlett Pear. There it 

 attains the highest perfection, and is esteemed as the finest pear of its season. 



Willison's Queen Victoria. See Queen Victoria. 



WINDSOR (Bell Tongue; Bellissime; Figue; Figue Musquee; 

 Green Windsor; Grosse Jargonelle; Konge; Madame; Madame de 

 France; Summer Bell; Supreme). Fruit, large and handsome ; pyri- 

 form, rounded at the eye. Skin, smooth, green at first, and changing 

 to yellow mixed with green, and with a faint tinge of orange and ob- 

 scure streaks of red on the exposed side. Eye, open, with stout, erect 

 segments, not at all depressed. Stalk, an inch and a half long, 

 inserted without depression, and with several fleshy folds at the base. 

 Flesh, white, tender, buttery, and melting, with a fine, brisk, vinous 

 flavour, and nice perfume. 



A fine old pear for orchard culture ; ripe in August. It should be 

 gathered before it becomes yellow. 



The tree is one of the strongest growers of any variety in cultiva- 

 tion ; particularly in its early growth, the shoots are very thick and 

 succulent, but short. It forms an upright, tall, and handsome tree 

 when grown in an alluvial soil, or in a deep sandy loam, with a cool 

 subsoil ; but if the soil is stiff, cold, and humid, it very soon cankers. 

 It is a good bearer, and when grown in a soil favourable to it we have 

 seen it produce an abundance of very large, handsome, and excellent 

 fruit. It has the property in many seasons of producing sometimes 

 a profusion of bloom at Midsummer, and a second crop of fruit, which, 

 however, is never of any value, from which circumstance it has been 

 called Poire Figue, Figue Musquee, and Deux fois Van. 



The only account of this ancient variety I have seen is by an English writer, 

 who says, " <k It was raised from seed ot the Cuisse Madame, by a person of the 

 name of Williamson, a relation of Williamson, whom Grimwood succeeded in 

 the Kensington Nursery." Grimwood succeeded to the Kensington Nursery 

 about the middle or latter half of the last century, but the Windsor Pear is men- 

 tioned by Parkinson, in his Faradisus, in 1629, a century before the Kensington 



