488 GENERAL REVIEW. 



Those interested in intelligent Pear-culture on the Quince 

 stock cannot do better than obtain permission to see Mr F. 

 Dancer's fruit-garden at Chiswick, where hundreds of bushels 

 of the very finest dessert Pears are annually sent to the Lon- 

 don fruit-markets from bush or pyramid trees all worked on this 

 stock. There is no comparison between the fruit produced by 

 standard or orchard trees on the Pear or free stock and bush 

 trees on the Quince. 



Dr Bretonneau, of Tours, has succeeded in intergrafting 

 Pears on Cotoneaster affinis, and also on Amelanchier as a 

 stock. Attempts to graft them on evergreen Cotoneasters, 

 such as C. buxifolia and C. microphylla, have failed. The 

 Jargonelle and Josephine de Malines both succeed well on the 

 White-thorn stock (see 'Card. Chron.,' 1873, p. 1732). 



A curious experiment in Pear-grafting is recorded in the 

 'Revue Horticole,' 1867 (see also ' Gard. Chron.,' 1867, p. 

 947). It appears that M. Carillet, of Vincennes, took two 

 young Pears, each worked on the Quince, and one Beurre 

 d'Aremberg was made to serve as the stock; the other 

 Beurre' de Charneu was dug up with care, and grafted by 

 approach in an inverted position i.e., with its roots in the air, 

 the head pointing downwards. This was in April ; and during 

 the summer the scion tree threw out buds and shoots from the 

 Quince stock and root, and the stock grew vigorously and 

 flowered, and bore two fruits. To add to the strangeness of 

 the union, M. Carillet grafted the exposed roots of the Quince 

 with two other varieties of Pear. This experiment shows that 

 the sap passes through stems either towards the apex or towards 

 the root with equal facility, and that roots have the power of 

 living fully exposed to light and air, and throw out shoots like 

 branches. No intermixture of individual characteristics seems 

 to have taken place here, although the sap passed first from the 

 Quince roots, then through Beurre d'Aremberg, thirdly through 

 the inverted stem of Beurre de Charneu, then into the Quince 

 stock on which the latter was grafted, and lastly into two Pear 

 grafts. 



For a very interesting essay on the variability of Pears, the 

 result of experiments made in the Jardin des Plantes between 

 1853 and 1862, by M. J. Decaisne, see 'Jour. Royal Hort. 

 Soc.,' new series, i. 36; or ' Annales des Sciences Naturelles,' 

 4 serie, xx. 188 (1864). Several seminal varieties of the Eng- 

 lish Wild Pear are figured by M. J. Decaisne in the ' Jardin 

 Fruitier du Musdum.' 



Pyrus domesiica, or " Witty Pear," of which there are at 

 least two varieties, is apparently wild in Wyre Forest, and is 



