318 General Notices. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



Root-pruning, and the management of the Pear Tree. — In our last number 

 we copied an article from the Gardeners'' Chronicle, (p. 280) on Root-prun- 

 ing pear trees, and particularly called the attention of all fruit cultivators to 

 the subject. The article was prepared for our May number, but was 

 crowded out for want of room. In a subsequent number of the Chronicle, 

 some writer, who signed himself a " Constant Reader," proposed a number 

 of questions to the writer of the article, and doubted the possibility of rais- 

 ing the pear to perfection on any other stock than the pear. He states that 

 he has been for years interested in the proper stocks for trees, and then 

 shows his ignorance by asking, " how much the fruit partakes of the flaA'or 

 of the quince" ! Mr. Rivers himself took up his pen in reply, and his re- 

 marks must be satisfactory to all, that the quince stock and root-pruning 

 are the materiel to produce pears in abundance and fine perfection. — Ed. 



I feel that it is a duty I owe to your correspondents and the gardening 

 world generally, to notice the letter of a " Constant Reader," in No. 21. 

 It will, perhaps, be the better mode to take his questions and remarks seri- 

 atim. He says, " I have been for years much interested in the proper stock 

 for fruit trees ; my impression is, that the pear cannot be produced in its 

 highest state of perfection (whatever the mode of treatment or the stock 

 used) on any other stock save the pear stock." To this I can answer most 

 positively that the very finest pears I have ever seen or tasted have been 

 produced on pear trees grafted on the quince. I use no stocks but the pear 

 and the quince ; the former for orchard trees, or for those who prefer the 

 pear stock ; the latter solely for garden trees, principally to form prolific 

 pyramidal trees, for which they are unrivalled both in beauty and fertility. 

 I fear "Constant Reader" has also been constant to his home: has he 

 never seen or tasted the magnificent pears in some of the fruit gardens near 

 Paris ? has he never seen the pear trees in the Potagerie at Versailles 1 or 

 tasted the fruit from themi (Mind, trees there are nearly all grafted on the 

 quince.) If he has not done this, he has yet something to see and taste. 

 I repeat, that I use only the pear and the quince as stocks, and I find the 

 pear stock submit as kindly to root-pruning (or even more so) as the quince. 

 I can illustrate the good effects of root-pruning very forcibly in my speci- 

 men orchard, and at any time your correspondent may see and believe ; 

 however, 1 must tell my tale, and then proceed 



About thirty years ago, my father planted some rows of pear trees in a 

 portion of the nursery, then a recent purchase ; these were all common 

 sorts of pears, standards, grafted as usual on the pear stock. They grew 

 most luxuriantly for some eight or ten years, when their leaves began to 

 'Change from their usually vivid green to a light yellow ; in a year or two, 

 this yellow tint increased till their foliage was really of a bright straw color ; 



