ABOUT FRUITS, ii.<.\vi;;;s AND FARMING. 371 



experiments being tried to test their capability of enduring 

 our warm sun." 



At Ch is wick Mr. Hovey saw the original tree of Wil- 

 liams' Bon Chretien pear (the Bartlett of Boston gardens). 

 It was hale and healthy. 



TULIPS. Mr. H. visited Mr. Groom, at Clapham ; u pre- 

 pa rat ions were making for planting out the great collection 

 of tulips in October. For this flower Mr. Groom is famus ; 

 he has raised several very splendid seedlings, some of which 

 are priced as high as Jive hundred dollars, and a great num- 

 ber at one hundred dollars each (21 sterling). It would 

 seem to those who know little of the tulip that this was 

 something of a tulip mania ; but the tulip is a most gorgeous 

 flower, and when once a love for it takes possession of the 

 amateur, and he obtains a knowledge of its properties, there 

 is scarce anything he would not sacrifice to obtain the 

 choicest kinds. In England, there are many collections 

 valued at thousands of pounds. In this country the tulip is 

 but little valued, and a "bed of the most common kind 

 attracts nearly as many admirers as one of the choicest and 

 high-priced flowers." 



DWARF PEAR-TREES. "The garden is laid out with 

 numerous walks, and the borders of them were filled with 

 bearing trees. They were from six to ten feet high, trained 

 in pyramidal form, and many of them full of fruit. This 

 mode of growing trees appears to be universally adopted 

 around Paris; we scarcely saw a standard tree. The 

 advantages of the pyramidal or quenouille form are, that, in 

 gardens of moderate extent only, a collection of two or 

 three hundred kinds may be cultivated ; they occupy but 

 little room, being placed about six feet apart, and being 

 pruned in, they do not throw sufficient shade to injure any- 

 thing growing near them. They afford greater facilities 

 for examining the fruit while growing, and for picking it 

 when ripe ; the trees are not so much shaken by high winds, 

 and the large kind of pears do not so easily blow off: the 



