BOOK XV. XVI. 55-xvii. 58 



its long neck, the bottle-pear ; and the Corioian and 

 Bruttian pears are so called because of their connexion 

 with certain races, and the gourd-pear and the 

 sourish pear because of their j uice. Pears the reason 

 for the names of which is uncertain are the barbarian, 

 the variety of Venus pear called the coloured Venus, 

 the royal pear called the squat pear because of its 

 very short stalk, the patrician pear, and the voci- 

 mum,^ a green kind of an oblong shape. Virgil has 

 also mentioned a warden pear,^ which he gets from 

 Cato, who also specifies a ' seed-time pear ' and a 

 * must-pear.' 



XV^Il. This department of hfe has long ago arrived Graftino. 

 at its highest point, mankind having explored every 

 possibiUty, inasmuch as Virgil speaks of grafting nuts Georg.u.^2. 

 on an arbutus, apples on a plane aiid cherries on an 

 elm. And nothing further can be devised — at all 

 events it is now a long time since any new kind of 

 fruit has been discovered. Moreover, rehgious 

 scruples do not permit us to cross all varieties by 

 grafting ; for instance, we must not graft upon a 

 thorn, inasmuch as it is not easy to expiate thunder- 

 bolts when they have struck them, and it is dechired 

 that the same number of bolts will strike it in a 

 sino-le flash as the kinds of trees that have been 

 grafted on it. 



Pears have a more tapering shape than apples. Keejdng and 

 The late kinds among them hang on the mother tree ^^^^vear. 

 till winter and ripen with the frost — the Greek pear, 

 the bottle pear, the bay-leaf pear; as also among 

 apples do the Amerian and Scaudian varieties. 

 Pears are put in storage like grapes, and in as many 

 different ways, and are the only fruit kept in casks 

 except plums. Of all the apple kind pears have 



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