ON THE CULTURE OF THE PEAR-TREE. 203 



and was about six feet high, was planted against a wall early in the 

 spring of 1810; and it was grafted in each of its lateral branches, two 

 of which sprang out of the stem about four feet from the ground, and the 

 others at its summit, in the following year. The shoots these grafts 

 produced, when about a foot long, were trained downwards, as in the 

 preceding experiment, the undermost nearly perpendicularly, and the 

 uppermost just below the horizontal line, placing them at such distances, 

 that the leaves of one shoot did not at all shade those of another. In the 

 next year, the same mode of training was continued, and in the following, 

 that is the last year, I obtained an abundant crop of fruit, and the tree 

 is again heavily loaded with blossoms. 



This mode of training was first applied to the Aston-Town pear, which 

 rarely produces fruit till six or seven years after the trees have been 

 grafted ; and from this variety, and the colmar, I have not obtained fruit 

 till the grafts have been three years old. 



In the future treatment of my young pear-trees it is my intention to 

 give them very nearly the form of the old tree I have described, in every 

 respect, except that these will necessarily stand upon larger stems, which 

 I think advantageous : and I shall not permit the existence of so great a 

 number of large lateral branches. In both cases the bearing wood will 

 depend wholly beneath the large branches which feed it ; for it is the 

 influence of gravitation upon the sap which occasions the early and 

 exuberant produce of fruit. 



I scarcely need add, that where, in old trees, it is not meant to change 

 the variety, nothing more will be necessary than to take off wholly the 

 spurs and supernumerary large branches, leaving every blossom which 

 grows near the end of the remaining branches, or that the length of the 

 dependent bearing wood must be different in different varieties. The 

 Crassane, the Colmar, and Aston-Town, will require the greatest, and 

 the St. Germain probably the least length. 



