290 PYRUS COMMUNIS. 
much further, had nature been left to her own operations. It is now not a quar- 
ter the size it once boasted ; but it looks healthy and vigorous, and when I saw 
it, it was covered with luxuriant blossoms. The original trunk is still remain- 
ing ; and there are young shoots which are only yet approaching the ground, but 
which seem nearly ready to take root in it. The tree would completely have 
covered the vicarage garden, if it had been allowed to remain. It is said to have 
been in its greatest perfection about 1776 or 1777. There is another tree of the 
same kind in the neighbourhood. Hereford, May 18, 1836." 
In Scotland, at Restalrig, near Edinburgh, in a garden adjacent to what was 
the house of Albert Logan, who was attainted in the reign of James VI., (of 
Scotland, and First of England,) there is a pear-tree, which was probably 
planted before his forfeiture. It is of the kind called " Golden Knap," which, in 
that part of the country, is generally considered as the best variety to plant for 
timber. At two and a half feet from the ground, in 1836, it was four yards in 
circumference. Dr. Neill has mentioned a number of very old pear-trees, 
standing in the neighbourhood of Jedburgh Abbey, and in fields known to 
have been formerly the gardens of religious houses in Scotland, which were 
destroyed at the time of the " Reformation." Such trees are, for the most part, 
in good health, and are abundant bearers; and as some of them must have been 
planted when the abbeys were built, they are probably from five to six hundred 
years old.* 
The introduction of this fruit-tree into the North American colonies, probably 
dates back to the early periods of their settlements. There are at present exist- 
ing in this country, many aged trees, celebrated for the improved excellence of 
their fruit, among which may be mentioned a venerable old tree, standing at the 
corner of the Third avenue and Thirteenth street, in the city of New York. It 
is said to have been planted in about the year 1646, by Peter Stuyvesant, then 
governor of New Netherlands, and has been a living witness of all the changes 
and political struggles through which this city has passed, for a period of nearly 
two hundred years. Although its trunk and larger branches are signaliy marked 
by the effects of time, it annually bears an abundance of delicious fruit, and at 
the present date, (April 17, 1845,) it is covered with a profusion of flowers. It is 
about forty feet in height, with a trunk one hundred inches in girth, at a yard 
above the ground. 
Soil and Situation. The common pear-tree naturally requires a dry soil, and 
where it is intended to grow to a large size, and be productive, it should be 
deep and fertile. It has been remarked that a somewhat clayey soil is more 
favourable to the longevity of the tree than one that is loose and sandy, in conse- 
quence of the resistance it offers to the larvae of insects, which attack its fruit. 
leaves, and wood, and which usually burrow below the surface, to transform. 
The same remark, it is said, holds true with regard to the apple, the mountain 
ash, (Pyrus aucuparia,) and other trees of this genus. " In respect to situation," 
Mr. Loudon observes, "where the pear-tree is grown for timber, or its effect in 
landscape scenery, it may either be planted at regular distances, as in an orchard, 
in lines in a hedge-row, or in scattered groups. There are few trees better 
adapted for being grown in hedge-rows than the fastigiate-growing varieties of 
the pear, because their roots descend perpendicularly, and can, therefore, never 
interfere with the plough ; and the heads, whether fastigiate or spreading, it is 
known from experience, do very little injury to pasture. If, therefore, fastigiate- 
growing trees, producing excellent sorts of fruit, were planted in all hedges, a 
very great benefit would result to the proprietors or to the public." 
Propagation and Culture. The wild pear may be continued by seed ; but th* 
* See Loudon's Arboretum Britannicum, ii., p. 888. 
