60 On rendering Pear Trees 



Art. XIX. On rendering Pear Trees and other Fruit Trees 

 fruitful, hy operating on the Borders, and by Natural Training. 

 By Mr. Robert Hiver. 



Sir, 



There are few subjects in horticulture which can be more 

 acceptable to your readers than a system by which good crops 

 of fruit may be obtained from pear trees planted against the 

 east and west walls in gentlemen's gardens ; the bad crops 

 these trees have afforded have been proverbial ever since I 

 can remember ; and the unnatural schemes which are now 

 resorted to, such as strangulation, ringing, depressing of the 

 branches, and reverse-grafting, show that a good system of 

 cultivation is not yet established. This failure has generally 

 been imputed by gardeners to the climate ; but as the trees are 

 seldom without fruit at the extremity of the branches, the 

 supposition may be considered erroneous. 



It is about twenty years ago since I noticed a brown 

 Beurree pear tree, trained against the east front of a farmer's 

 cottage. This tree grew upon a limestone rock, where there 

 was very little earth, yet it never failed to yield, yearly, plenty 

 of large and well-flavoured fruit. From what I observed of 

 this tree, it appeared evident that the rich and deep border, 

 usually prepared by gardeners, was decidedly wrong, as the 

 plants in this case generated too much sap, which always in- 

 duces disease and barrenness ; and, I believe, it will be found 

 in the tree, as in the human constitution, that the state of 

 health consists in the medium between emptiness and repletion. 

 Sir H. Davy has shown the utility of stones in agricultural 

 crops; and I have found them exceedingly beneficial in the 

 formation of fruit-tree borders ; they prevent the accumulation 

 of water in very wet weather, and also retain sufficient mois- 

 ture for the purposes of the plant in dry seasons. In 1813, I 

 replanted an old pear wall, 240 ft. long ; the border for these 

 trees was 1 2 ft. wide, and only 26 in. deep, 8 in. of which were 

 filled with stones, such as could be most readily procured in 

 the neighbourhood, and the remaining 18 with the mould 

 which composed the old border. 



By this scanty supply of earth for the roots of these plants 

 I have succeeded in obtaining a fruitful and healthy growth, 

 equally remote from debility and luxuriance; and by this 

 simple process I procure fruit all over the tree, as regularly as 

 if it had been mechanically placed, both plentifully up the 

 main stem, and on the lowest horizontal branches. My trees 

 are fan-trained in the best manner ; the shoots are kept as uni- 

 form and straight as the plications of the instrument from 



