442 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



whole process is made unnecessarily troublesome, laborious 

 and expensive, without achieving any better results than can 

 be attained by more simple means. Fruit-rooms, for instance, 

 are almost indispensable to every extensive cultivator ; the 

 convenience of space for storing and for assorting ren- 

 dering them of the utmost importance, particularly for the 

 summer and autumn varieties. But that all who cultivate the 

 winter pears must necessarily have a fruit-room to ripen them 

 is the great error. 



Nearly all the experiments which have been made in ripen- 

 ing pears have been on a small scale ; that is, with a small 

 quantity of fruit, and this divided into many sorts. It has 

 been found that many of the varieties, stored away in ordi- 

 nary places, have become worthless before the time of their 

 maturity, either shrivelled up or decayed, and hence it has 

 been inferred that our knowledge of ripening has been very 

 imperfect. The ignorance has not been so much in the 

 ripening as in the cultivation ; and if the latter had been 

 right, we should have less complaint of the former. A fruit 

 half grown, must necessarily shrivel up, unless extra pains 

 are taken to prevent it ; but without inquiring first whether 

 the cultivation was such as it should have been, we have en- 

 deavored to perfect by art what nature never intended we 

 should, — that is, to ripen and mature a half grown fruit. 



These views have been forced upon us after long experi- 

 ence in the preservation of a very great number of pears. 

 Anxious to test the qualities of many of the most recent ac- 

 quisitions, it has been our object to preserve them in the best 

 condition. To do this it was important that we should have 

 a fruit-room: we had one constructed, and though it materi- 

 ally aided us in our efforts, we still found it would not ripen 

 many of our fruits. The conviction seemed about to be 

 forced upon us that it would be almost impossible to mature 

 some of them ; and repeated trials did not change our opin- 

 ion, until, in the course of time, the trees flourished and 

 produced abundantly, so that where we formerly had a dozen 

 pears of any particular sort, we now had a barrel, and, of all, 

 many barrels : these could not be stored in an ordinary-sized 



