406 THE PEAR. 



Fruit small, oval. Skin pale yellow, with a white bloom, and 

 sprinkled with reddish-brown spots at maturity. Flesh adheres 

 closely to the stone, yellow, and when fully ripe, of a rich, 

 sprightly, sub-acid, agreeable flavour. Ripens about the last of 

 September. 



Ornamental Varieties. 



There are few varieties of plums, which are considered pure- 

 ly ornamental. One, however, is a remarkable exception to 

 this, as it is scarcely exceeded in beauty in the month of May 

 by any other flowery shrub — we mean the Double Flowering 

 Sloe. It is a large shrub, only 10 or 12 feet high, with quite 

 slender shoots and leaves, but it is thickly sprinkled, every 

 spring, with the prettiest little double white blossoms about as 

 large as a sixpence, but resembling the Lady Banks' roses. It 

 is one of the greatest favourites of the Chinese and Japanese — 

 those flower-loving people. 



The Common English Sloe, or Blackthorn, (Frunus spino- 

 sa,) is rather an ornamental tree in shrubbery plantations. The 

 branches are more thorny than those of the common damson, 

 and the fruit is nearly round, quite black, but covered with a 

 thick blue bloom. In the spring, this low tree is a perfect 

 cloud of white blossoms. 



The Double-blossomed Plum has large and handsome dou- 

 ble white flowers. Except in strong soils, however, they are 

 apt to degenerate and become single, and are, indeed, always 

 inferiour in effect to the Double Sloe. 



The Cherry Plum we have already described. It is one of 

 the fruit-bearing sorts. 



Selection of Choice Varieties. 



Rivers' Early Favourite, Green Gage, Imperial Ottoman, Jef- 

 ferson, Lawrence's Favourite, Purple Favourite, Purple Gage, 

 Coe's Golden Drop, McLaughlin, Imperial Gage, Howard's Fa- 

 vourite, Prince's Yellow Gage, Prune d'Agen, Reine Claude de 

 Bavay, Schuyler Gage. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

 The Pear. 



Pyrius communis, L. Rosacea, of botanists. 



Foirier, of the French ; Birnebaum, German ; Peer, Dutch ; Fero, Italian ; 



and Pera, Spanish. 



The Pear is, undeniably, the favourite fi-uit of modern times, 



