50 " Foreign Notices. — liali/, DeiimarJc. 



mostly of inferior varieties, had their extreme branches regrafted with thfe 

 best sorts, they would bear crops in a very few years ; and it might be 

 worth the attention of the Prussian Horticultural Society to publish in- 

 structions, provide grafts, and offer premiums with this view. That the 

 change would be.greatly to the advantage of the cultivators of fruit on the 

 Rhine, is. clear fr-om its extreme cheapness there in tolerably plentiful years. 

 Retail dealers in the streets offered us twenty large bell pears for a groschen 

 (lid), and fifty large plums for the same sum: and grapes could be af- 

 forded for 2f/. a lb., or less. {Note of a Friend. Sept. 1821.) 



Pear Syrup. — This is one of those preparations of fruits, which, though 

 little, if at all known in England, form an important branch of rural eco- 

 nomy in many parts of the Continent, enabhng the peasants to derive pro- 

 fit from their vast crops of pears, which would otherwise in great part be 

 useless. In preparing it, the pears are first heated in a copper over the 

 fire, until the pulp, skins, &c., have separated from the juice, which is then 

 strained, and gently boiled down to the consistence of molasses, which in 

 appearance and colour it exactly resembles, but with a more agreeable fla- 

 vour, combining that just proportion of sweet and acid which would be 

 relished by any palate not very fastidious. A considerable part of this 

 syrup is consumed by the peasants in their own families, and the rest sent 

 to market in the towns, where, at a price considerably less, it supplies the 

 place of molasses, being given by the poor to their children on thin slices 

 of bread, and largely used by the pastry-cooks in the preparation of ginger- 

 bread. Until pear trees are grown in England far more profusely than at 

 present, it can seldom answer to apply their produce with us to the manu- 

 facture of syrup ; though in plentiful years it might turn to account to 

 adopt this plan in districts where coals are cheap. Indeed, the experiment 

 might be worth trying, whether in such situations pear trees might not be 

 cultivated with profit for the express purpose of manufacturing this substi- 

 tute for molasses, which at the same price, children (the great consumers) 

 being the judges, it would soon drive out of the market. At any rate, a 

 family in the countr_y, with a surplus of pears, might always thus convert 

 them, at little expense, into a wholesome and highly palatable conserve 

 for its younger branches, {Ibid.) 



' . ITALY. 



Edible Fungi, — At Naples, gardeners are said to make use of a stone 

 called the jneti'a fungaja, in order to produce the boletus tuberaster. At 

 Brescia the Amanita incarnata Pers. is produced from the bruised fragments 

 of that mushroom ; and the Jgaricus ostreatus, another edible species, is 

 produced at pleasure from the husks of the berries of the Sweet Bay, iau- 

 rus nobilis, after they have been boiled, in order to extract the oil. The 

 husks are buried in a trench, firmly pressed down, and a layer of earth 

 about 6 in. thick placed over them, and also firmly pressed. The whole 

 must be guarded from excessive rains. A bed made in this way will produce 

 mushrooms in October, and continue to furnish them during the Novem- 

 ber and December of that and the two succeeding years. About Genoa, 

 they produce mushrooms in a similar manner, by using the i-emains of 

 olives which have been pressed for oil. In the Landes in the south of 

 France, they water the earth under oak trees, with water in which has 

 been boiled the boletus edulis, and this is said to produce an abundant 

 crop of that species. {Bui. Un., Oct. 1827.) 



DENMARK. 



Grapes in the open Air in Denmark, in the end of December. — M. Linde- 

 gaard has got a vine between three and four years old, trained in front of 

 the outside of the orangery, of the White Chasselas or White Van der Lahn 



