142 



PRAUS. 



DIX PEAR. ?R. CAT. ^ow^^ 



Madaiii Dix's mansion house is situated at the south part of 

 Boston, where she has resided for more than thirty years ; 

 contiguous to the house is a fine spacious garden, containing 

 many large fruit trees, among which are a St. Germain, and a 

 Bonchretien pear, both large and near together, wliich may 

 be tiie parents of this seedling pear, which came up fifteen 

 years since, near the wood-house; Its close resemblance in 

 appearance to the St. Germain, gives the strongest reason to 

 suppose that one of its parents. The seedling pear tree is twen- 

 ty-three feet high, and ten inches in diameter four feet from 

 the ground. With the exception of some of the lower limbs 

 having been taken off last season, it has never been pruned, 

 and has always remained where it sprang up. The top is so 

 thick with branches and cross limbs, being full of thorns that 

 the head cannot be entered without difficulty. The branches 

 grow out at first horizontally, then after bending down a little, 

 turn up at the end. It makes rather small wood ; leaves small 

 and finely serrated, not folded Hke the St. Germain, but flat, 

 with long stems, colour light green, with a gloss. The tree 

 has been in bearing three or four years, and when it is pro- 

 perly pruned, the size of the fruit will probably be increased, 

 and the quality improved. The soil is rich, and its situation a 

 very good one. 



Size over medium, and may rank with large pears; the spe- 

 cimen, of which a drawing was made for the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society, measured four and a half inches in height, 

 and eight round ; skin rough, and rather thick, the fruit re- 

 sembling the St. Germain, but longer and larger — those grow- 

 ing inside of the tree are green, but those on the outside, 

 exposed to the sun, have a fine blush, turning yellow when 

 mature ; stem not exceeding three quarters of an inch in 

 length, not large, and set on the top of the fruit j blossom end 

 a litde indented, with a peculiar eye, appearing as if drawn up 

 with a string, and puckered or plaited round it, and a little 



