322 General Notices. 



No. 3 is exceedingly "refractory," and I am not quite sure that it will 

 live and flourish for any lengthened period, although double worked on very 

 thrifty stocks. In some soils, this fine pear does not ripen well on stand- 

 ards ; it is therefore very desirable to get it to do well on the quince, as it 

 will, I have no doubt, bear when the tree is young; at present, it is, while 

 young, a shy bearer. 



No. 4. My standards of this sort, on the pear stock, too often bear mis- 

 shapen fruit, inclined to speck and crack, and, in some seasons, not ripening 

 well on the quince. Its fruit is clear, fine, and remarkably high-flavored 



No. 11. I notice this pear, as I remarked, a short time since, one of your 

 correspondents inquired of you its origin, which you could not give. I re- 

 ceived it, with several other sorts, from M. Van Mons, I think about eight- 

 een years ago ; I understood him at the time that they were seedlings, not 

 then named ; this is a very hardy and excellent late pear, about the size of 

 Beurre d'Aremberg, but larger, first rate in quality as a melting pear, and 

 fit for the table from February to April ; the sorts then received were placed 

 in the nursery catalogue as " Inconnue Van Mons," and numbered. They 

 all still stand under the same name, with different numbers attached. 



The sorts I use to form a stock on the quince for re-grafting are Beurr6 

 d'Amanlis, Jargonelle d'Automne, Fondante de Brest. These all form the 

 most luxuriant stocks. Grafting on the quince often fails. I have known 

 eighteen out of twenty to succeed in some seasons, and the same number 

 to fail in others. It is an uncertain mode ; budding is preferable. For 

 double working you may always graft, that is, if you prefer it, or if your 

 buds fail. Grafts succeed perfectly on the shoot of the pear produced from 

 the quince stock the preceding season. I earth up my trees, to encourage 

 them to root close up to the junction of the graft with the stock, but not 

 with the view of making the graft root. I wish to avoid this, as the effect 

 of the quince stock is then lost. If you wish for cultivated pears on their 

 own roots, there is much time and labor lost by this mode ; for any variety 

 of pear may be layered, and good plants obtained, ia about two seasons. 



And now for the last paragraph of your " constant" friend. Can we al- 

 ways find " soil and locality in every respect suitable" to the growth of 

 foreign varieties of pears 1 Is not our method of placing them against 

 walls and espalier rails, &c. " unnatural ?" The peach tree, which, in the 

 United States, in a natural state, bears such enormous crops, bears here at 

 least equally fine fruit, but in most " unnatural" places. My root-pruned 

 pear trees, many of them, I have purposely made to contend against nature ; 

 in a soil that is naturally death to them I make them flourish. To use the 

 oft-quoted sentence, " a man that can make a blade of grass to grow," &c. 

 is a benefactor to his race, and if I can, by precept and example, enable the 

 numerous occupiers of small gardens to grow pears and apples for their des- 

 sert nine months in the year, and plums and cherries during the summer, 

 shall I not also be a benefactor in a humble way ? I hope so. 



Allow me to advise your correspondent to visit the Horticultural Gardens 

 at Chiswick ; he may there see pear trees of some twenty-five years' growth 

 on the quince stock, with roots protruding from the stock close to its junc- 



