The Virgmdouse, or White Doyenne Pear. 533 



susceptible of a good deal of improvement, and we may yet 

 hope to find the excellence of the Green Gage in a fruit of 

 the size of the Washington. 



Art. II. The Virgouloiise, or White Doyenni Pear. 

 By S. D. P. New Haven, Conn. 



TwENTY-FrvE years ago, there was no pear cultivated in this 

 section of the country of such universally admitted excellence 

 as the Virgoulouse, or, as it is called by some, the St. Michael, 

 or White Doyenne. Every cultivator of pears, if he had but 

 one tree, would choose this sort, and many gardens contained 

 several trees with no other variety. About that time, or soon 

 after, the fruit began to crack and blast, and, for many years 

 past, the trees in many of our gardens have hardly produced 

 a single perfect or good pear ; and the cultivation of this once 

 favorite and delicious fruit is now generally abandoned in 

 this vicinity. 



Remembering the high relish with which I had eaten the 

 Virgoulouse in my boyish days, I read with much interest 

 the remarks of Mr. Downing, in his Fruits a?id Fruit Trees 

 of America, on this pear, of which the following is an ex- 

 tract : — 



" It is an old French variety, but, with us, is in the most 

 perfect health, and bears annually large crops of superb fruit. 

 On the seacoast, an unhealthy, diseased stock of this pear has 

 been propagated, until it has become so liable to cracking as 

 to be nearly worthless. In this case, it is only necessary to 

 renew the stock by procuring it again from healthy sources. 

 This experiment has been fairly proved of late." — (p. 379.) 



In the same autumn (1S45) that I read these remarks of 

 Mr. Downing, I sent to him an order for some fruit trees, and 

 included in my list the White Doyenne, or Virgoulouse, fully 

 crediting what he had written on the subject. I prepared the 

 ground thoroughly for the trees, and gave them a deep rich 

 soil. The Virgoulouse has grown finely, and is a very thrifty, 

 beautiful tree. It has this year borne fruit, and you may 

 47* 



