146 On the Co?istitution and Administration 



and flavour to the Present de Malines, and Passe Colmar. The 

 two pears now sent grew against a west wall, in my garden 

 at Thames Ditton, in Surrey. (Excellent. Cond.) 



I have kept back those pears as long as I conveniently 

 could, in order to try the keeping quality of the fruit against 

 the Poire d'Auch, heretofore our best keeping pear. A 

 specimen of this last I send, that you may compare them 

 together. It is scarcely treating these pears with fair play, 

 to tumble them about before tasting, at this season of the 

 year, as such usage is almost certain of deteriorating their 

 flavour, by bringing on fermentation into their juice, which 

 will render them mealy. To keep fruits well, they should 

 be preserved in an equal dry temperature, under the fer- 

 menting point, from whence they should only be brought 

 just at the time of using. This my experience teaches, and 

 acting upon this principle, I have prepared the fruit room in 

 my new habitation, for my choice keeping fruit, thirty-two 

 feet under the surface of the earth, in the solid dry rock ; 

 the foundation being laid thirty-three feet and a half above 

 the level of the spring in the well, a few yards off. The 

 stone which was quarried out of these three stories of cellars, 

 was all used in the building, and cost less than an equivalent 

 of bricks at fifteen shillings per thousand. 



Respectfully, I am, 



Dear Sir, 8cc. 

 Boughton Mount, John Braddick. 



March 1. 1826. 



Art. XV . Remarks on the Constitution and Administration of 

 the London Horticultural Society. By a Fellow of the 

 Society. 



Sir, 

 I congratulate you very sincerely on the undertaking a 

 Gardener's Magazine, which, if conducted with common 

 care, and some spice of impartiality, will be as amusing as 

 instructing to amateur gardeners like myself. I am not given 

 to authorship, and have some hesitation in putting pen to 

 paper, when I consider that it is to be printed ; but the fact 

 is, you have won my heart by the remark in your first num- 

 ber, on the laying out of the garden of the Horticultural 

 Society of Chiswick ; if the term " laying out" may, with any 

 thing like decent propriety, be applied to such an arrangement 

 of straight walks and kidney- shaped clumps, as are displayed 

 in this garden of the richest and most , highly patronized 



