108 On Pear Trees and Pomological Publications. 



those trees which have travelled from the south into the north, 

 or which have been transplanted from the banks of the 

 Tweed and Clyde into more southern latitudes. 



I started in horticulture with much zeal and little know- 

 ledge. I determined to have a good fruit-garden, but I did 

 not see the shoals and quicksands which were to beset me in 

 my track. I was not then aware of the excellent caution 

 contained in your last Magazine, " that every fruit has its 

 favourite latitude." 



I selected many pear and apple trees in Scotland, which, 

 in that moister and cooler climate, had afforded me excel- 

 lent repast; but this spring I shall have to regraft several, 

 which, in my dry and free-stone soil, have proved vapid, and 

 not worth retaining. 



Other trees, which I obtained from the south, will, I fear, 

 not ripen their wood or bear, having migrated too far into 

 the north. Although Mr. Forsyth's list is the best we have 

 for reference, he seems not to have formed a plan for his de- 

 scription of the various fruits. Neither have other writers 

 done so. In some we have the virtues of the fruit, in others 

 their habitat, but few have given a full description of both. 

 Surely we should have some more decided list given for all of 

 us to work up to ; something similar to the tabular catalogue 

 in your EncyclopcBdia, only more extensive. I would advise 

 adding to these tables the following additional columns : — 

 Soil and situation the fruit covets; colour, size, and period 

 of blossom; length of stalk, a material consequence in 

 exposed situations ; the period of leafing, as connected with 

 the blooming. 



Perhaps some other matters may be added, but of the value 

 of the above additions I am confident. Take, for instance, one 

 out of many facts; — no early blossoming tree, which is a late 

 leafer, will ever prove a good setter of fi'uit in my orchard. 



The subject, I think, is worthy of your labours, and although 

 it will require time to bring a descriptive catalogue to per- 

 fection, yet, when effected, a most valuable object will be 

 .gained. Rome was not built in one day; San Gallo was 

 j'ears about his miserable models for a cathedral at Rome, 

 but we know that Michael Angelo perfected in one fortnight 

 his immortal design of the church of St. Peter. 



A few years since, I planted two Colmar and two Gansell's 

 Bergamot pears ; but as the latter proved the common Sum- 

 mer Bergamot, I regrafted them with cuttings, sent to me 

 from Liverpool, of the Poire d'Auch. Now, if my ideas are 

 correct, that the Colmar and Poire d'Auch are equally tender 

 trees, there seems to have resulted an extraordinary fact from 



