P Y R 



P Y R 



trenched anmiallv for the reception of the undcr- 

 crops, and occasionally enriched with dung, they 

 generally produce tiner fruit than in orchards, or 

 other places where the ground is not in similar 

 culture. 



Mr. Forsyth observes that " the method of 

 pruning pear-trees is very difierent IVoin that 

 £ractised for apple-trees in general, in which the 

 constant practice has been to leave great spurs 

 as big as a man's arm, standing out from the 

 walls from one foot to eighteen inches and up- 

 wards." The constant pruning, he says," inevi- 

 tably brings on the canker; and, by the spurs 

 standing out so far from the wall, the blossom 

 and fruit are liable to be much injured by tiie 

 frost and blight':ng winds, and thus the sap will 

 not have a free circulation all over the tree. The 

 sap will always find its way first to the e.xtre- 

 mities of the slioots; and the spurs will only re- 

 ceive it in a small proportion, as it returns from 

 the ends of the branches ; and the fruit stand- 

 ino; at so sreat a distance from the wall is too 

 much exposed to the vi-eather, and, ot course, 

 is liable to be hard, spotted and kernelly." 



The following method, he says, he has prac- 

 tised where the trees were all over cankered, and 

 the fruit bunall, and not fit to be sent to the 

 table. " He cut the tops off as near as possible to 

 where they were grafted, always observing to 

 cut as close to a joint or bud as possible. The 

 buds are hardly perceptible, but it canalways, he 

 says, be known where the joints, or forks, are, 

 by the branches breaking out of the sides." 



He adds, that " finding the pear-trees in Ken- 

 sington Gardens in a very cankery and unfruitful 

 state, in the years 1784 and 5, he took out the 

 old mould from the borders against the walls, 

 and put in fresh loam in its stead ; at the same 

 time he pruned and nailed the trees in the com- 

 mon way, and left them in that state upwards of 

 tightetn months, to see what effect the fresh 

 mould would have on them ; but, to his great 

 surprise, he found that it had no good effect." 



After ihis trial he began to consider what 

 should be done in order to recover these old 

 trees. In this attempt he " began with cutting 

 down four old and decayed pear-trees of different 

 kinds, near to the place where they had been 

 grafted : this operation was performed on the 1 5th 

 of May, 17S6. Finding that they put forth fine 

 shoots, he headed down four more on the i!Oth 

 of June in the same year (for by this lime the 

 i'ormcr had shoots of a foot long), which did 

 e(jually well, and bore some fruit in the following 

 year. One of the first four that he headed down 

 was a St. Gennain, which produced nineteen fine 

 large well-flavoured pears next year, and in the 

 third bore qiore fruit than it tild in its former 



state when it was four times the size. He left 

 seven trees upon an east wall, treated according 

 to the common method of pruning, which bore 

 the iollowing number of pears upon each tree : 

 E])ined'Hyver produced ci^hty-six pears, and the 

 tree spread fifteen yards ; a Crasane produced one 

 hundred pears, and the tree spread fourteen 

 yards ; another Crasane produced sixteen pears, 

 and the tree spread ten yard-: : a Virgoleuse pro- 

 duced one hundred and fifty pears, and the tree 

 spread nine yards ; a Colmar produced one hun- 

 dred and fifty pears, and the tree spread nine 

 yards ; anothir Colmar produced seventy nine 

 pears, and the tree spread tea yards ; a L'Es- 

 chasserie produced sixty pears. 



" But seven trees headed down and pruned 

 according to his own method, leaving the fore- 

 right shoots in summer, bore, he says, as follows, 

 in the fourth year after heading : — a Louisbonne 

 bore four hundred and sixty-lhree pears, and the 

 tree spread nine yards ; another Louisbonne bore 

 three hundred and ninety-one pears, and spread 

 eight yards ; a Colmar bore two hundred and 

 thirteen pears, and spread six yards ; a Brown 

 Beurre bore five hundred and three pears ; an- 

 other Brown Beurre bore five hundred and fifty 

 pears ; a Crasane bore five hundred and twenty 

 pears; a Virgouleuse bore five hundred and 

 eighty pears. And he adds that the branches 

 of the four last trees spread nearly in the same 

 proportion as the first three. He also states that 

 a young Beurre, the second year after heading, 

 bore two hundred and thirty pears; and a St. 

 Germain four hundred. All the above trees 

 stooJ in the same aspect and the same wall, 

 and the fruit was numbered in the same year. 

 A great many pears which dropped from the 

 trees are not reckoned. The trees that were 

 pruned according to the old practice covered at 

 least one-third more wall than the other. 



From this statement it appears, he says, that 

 the trees headed down bore upwards of five 

 times the quantity of fruit that the others did ; 

 and that it keeps increasing in proportion to the 

 progress of the trees. This is an important 

 statement in the culture and management of old 

 trees of this sort ; and the following fact with 

 respect to standards is deserving of great atten- 

 tion : — 



" On the 20th of June he headed several 

 standards that were almost destroyed by the 

 canker ; some of them were so loaded w ith fruit 

 the following year, that he was ol)!Iged to prop 

 the branches, to prevent their being broken 

 down by the weight of it. In the fourth year 

 after these standards were headed down, one of 

 them bore two thousand eight hiuulred and forty 

 pears. There were three standards on the same 



