General Notices. 281 



himself of the advantages of the stock, he first grafts on it a common pear, 

 and then grafts or buds the reluctant or refractory variety on the pear ; and 

 by this mode of double working, he procures a good bearing tree, with all 

 the advantage of the quince root. Five years ago, I had small pear trees, 

 with bloom buds in November, which bore a good crop in the following 

 year ; and any one who had laid in a stock of these little conical trees last 

 autumn, might have this season had an orchard of pears in full bearing, 

 always presuming that we do not have such a May to destroy our fruit as 

 we had last season. It is astonishing what a collection of these trees may 

 be contained in a small space ; from five to six feet apart, in rows running 

 north and south, is quite space sufficient. I feel satisfied that not half suffi- 

 cient attention is paid to this fruit for our desserts ; a very little care, and a 

 judicious selection of sorts, would ensure them daily from the end of July 

 till May. 1 found two sorts in Mr. Rivers' fruit house, both in excellent 

 Older — the Fortune, an admirable pear, and the Ne plus Meuris, and I dare 

 say these will be equally good a month hence. I think he told me he had 

 nearly 900 kinds, of course very many of which are worthless, but there 

 are many which he has not yet proved; and again, although his grounds 

 affijrd a great variety of soil and aspect, yet as it is known that climate, 

 aspect, and soil have a strong influence on the excellence of the fruit, we 

 are still in want of information from your various correspondents on this 

 subject. There are many kinds which produce finer looking fruit on walls, 

 which, however, are much surpassed in flavor by the smaller fruits, as on 

 espaliers or on conical shaped standards. I have adopted a suggestion of 

 Mr. Rivers, in planting a conical trained standard near the wall between 

 my peach trees, and find the fruit of the tender varieties better flavored than 

 what is grown against the wall ; and these trees take up little or no wall. 

 Mr. Rivers finds the trees grafted on quince stocks flourish better when the 

 whole of the stock is covered with earth (he grafting at about six inches 

 from the ground) as the stock is apt to get hard and hidebound, especially 

 when the graft is of a kind of vigorous growth. He has planted several 

 on mounds of earth, tonguing the stock to encourage the throwing out of 

 small roots, and he proposes in the autumn to replant them, cutting away 

 the bottom strong roots, and then obtaining little else than a mass of fine 

 fibrous roots for the support of his tree, which will make fruitfulness cer- 

 tain. When this matter was first discussed, that is, a systematic course of 

 root-pruning, for we all admitted that it was occasionally done before, the 

 objectors cried out that no good fruit would be produced ; that the fruit like 

 the trees would be stunted and vviihout flavor and gritty. I can report that 

 the fruit on my root-pruned trees has been finer than that produced on old 

 trees which were left in their natural stale ; but these pruned trees must be 

 duly attended to, manured, and must be mulched in a dry summer. — (Gard. 

 Chron. p. 253.) 



Culture of the Chinese Primrose. — In pot culture, two difl^erent methods 



may be pursued. When the object is to obtain a number and succession of 



plants, three or four sowings should be made from the beginning of July to 



the end of September. As soon as the seedlmgs have formed two proper 



26* 



