316 On Fruits and Fruit Frees. 



Art. VI. On Fruits and Fruit Trees. By Mr. T. Rivers, Jun. 



I am a great lover of fruits, and a persevering cultivator ; 

 that is, I spare no pains or application to arrive at correct 

 nomenclature; but surely no one, but a man like Mr. Thompson 

 of the London Horticultural Society, can form any idea of the 

 extreme difficulty of attaining that object. Before the publica- 

 tion of the Pomological Magazine, and the last Catalogue of the 

 London Horticultural Society, it was all confusion " worse con- 

 fused. " Some ten or fifteen years since, I used to order the 

 same article of two or three respectable London nurserymen, 

 and, if they all proved of similar habits, I hoped I had got the 

 right; but if, as it often happened, they were all different, I 

 almost despaired of getting correctly the plant I wanted. There 

 was no individual blame, for we nurserymen all thought we 

 were right. Thanks to the London Horticultural Society, these 

 times are passed, and we now know what to recommend. Mr. 

 Thompson will, however, find the Catalogue even now to require 

 revision and correction in the next edition : his ample notes 

 taken in season, and his fine opportunities for taking them, will 

 allow him to do this in the best possible manner. 



It is now some years since you inserted my account of an or- 

 chard in miniature in your Magazine [Malus, in III. 281 — 283.] : 

 it is still in being, and annually exacts my admiration. Planted 

 on untrenched ground, the substratum strong clay, and the 

 surface never dug, though kept quite clean with the hoe, the trees 

 make short shoots, which are made still shorter by the knife in 

 July : in consequence, every tree is a dense mass of blossom and 

 fruit in its respective seasons, quite delightful to witness. None 

 of the trees are larger than a full-sized gooseberry bush. [fig. 104. 

 in III. 282.] [Mr. Turner of the Bury Botanic Garden, who 

 has seen this miniature orchard, has expressed to us his admira- 

 tion of it. — J. Z).] 



The Flemish and other new Pears. — Every person with a 

 garden of ten square yards ought to plant an Easter beurre, a 

 Marie Louise, and a Hacon's incomparable pear : if they have 

 a larger garden, let them add gloux morceau, beurre Die!, 

 beurre ranee, and passe Colmar. These pear trees are all 

 great bearers of fruit of excellent quality; and they seem to 

 flourish in any soil. Confine their roots in a basin of stones, 

 and you may have a pear orchard in miniature without quince 

 stocks. I have a pyretum, in a row on each side of a walk, of 

 nearly 200 varieties, in which is every sort that I have ever 

 heard of as worth notice : besides this, in different parts of the 

 grounds, in detached rows, are upwards of 600 pear trees for 

 bearing fruit, in various stages of growth, from 5 years to 50. 

 Every tree planted by my ancestors (for we have been " located " 



