OF PEARS. 149 



months, to see what effect the fresh mould would 

 have on them ; but, to my great surprize, I found 

 that it had no fijood effect. 



After I had tried the fresh mould as above, I 

 began to consider what was best to be done with 

 so many old pear-trees that were worn-out. The 

 fruit that they produced I could not send to His 

 Majesty's table with any credit to myself, it being 

 small, hard, and kernelly. I thought it would be 

 a great reflection on me as a professional man, 

 that, after I had put His Majesty to so great an 

 expence, no advantage was likely to be derived 

 from it. I saw that some method must be tried 

 to restore these old trees, or that next year they 

 must be grubbed up ; and was loth to give them 

 entirely up before I had tried some experiments. 

 I considered, that it must be between twelve 

 and fourteen years before I could have any fruit 

 from young trees ; and therefore determined to 

 try an experiment, wdth a view to recovering the 

 old ones. 



I began with cutting down four old and de- 

 cayed pear-trees of different kinds, near to the 

 place where they had been grafted : this opera- 

 tion was performed on the 15ih of May I786. 

 Finding that they put forth fine shoots, I headed 

 down four more on the 20th of June in the same 

 year (for by this time the former had shoots of a 

 foot long), which did equally well, and bore some 

 fruit in the following year. One of the first four 

 that I headed down was a St. Germain, which 



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