PBAHS. 867 



continues in use till December. The tree is hardy, vigorous, and an 

 excellent bearer. 



It racceeds best as a standard, and is found to produce fruit of 

 superior quality even in soils that are unfavourable to the growth of 

 pears generally. 



This esteemed variety was raised by Mr. T. A. Knight, and first prodaced fruit 

 in 1830. Mr. Knight says : "As a dessert pear the Althorp Crasanne is, to my 

 taste, the best ; and its rose-water flavour will please where musk offends." 



AMADOTTE {Damadote; Madot; Dame Houdotte ; MusJdrte Win- 

 teramadot; L'Amadot Musque d'Hiver). — Fruit, medium sized, two 

 inches and three-quarters wide, and the same in height ; of a roundish 

 obovate shape, and flattened at the apex. Skin, thin, of a pale green 

 colour, which changes as it ripens to clear lemon-yeUow ; but where 

 exposed to the sun it is of a deeper yellow and faintly tinged with red. 

 In some parts it is thickly marked with rough, brown, russety dots, 

 particularly round the eye, and sometimes it is entirely covered with 

 fine cinnamon russet, except on some parts that are very much shaded, 

 and then the ground colour appears. Eye, half open, with long acu- 

 minate segments, and placed in a small and sometimes pretty deep 

 basin. Stalk, stout, an inch and three-quarters long, obliquely in- 

 serted on the summit of the fruit with a fleshy protuberance on one 

 side of it. Flesh, yellowish white, crisp and juicy, half melting like 

 Passe Colmar, and with an unusually sugary, rich, and very strong 

 musky or rather anise flavour, which, as Diel says, " one seldom meets 

 with." 



An old French pear, which, for a crisp-fleshed variety, is of first-rate 

 quality. It ripens in the end of October and continues in use till 

 about the middle or end of December. 



The tree is a vigorous pyramidal grower, and the branches are 

 furnished with thorns, which Merlet says disappear when grown on the 

 quince. But the fruit is preferable from a tree that is grown on the 

 pear, being more juicy and melting. 



Miller says this variety is the best stock for grafting melting pears upon, as it 

 communicates to them a portion of its fine musky flavour. Whether or not such is 

 the case I cannot certify, as I have never tried it ; but the following extract will 

 show what upwards of a century ago was the opinion of this pear : — '* This fruit, 

 as well as other dry and perfumed fruits, are much better upon dry soils than upon 

 wet and moist land, the latter bringing large but watery and insipid fruit. Chiefly 

 it should be observed, that all of the melting or butter pears, which seldom are very 

 high flavoured, should be planted in light soils ; and it has been an observation 

 worthy notice, that the Buree Pears, or those that are melting, like the Thorn Pear, 

 I'Echasserie, &c. , are greatly improved by grafting them upon the Amadotte, for the 

 juices or sap of the Amadotte is musked and richly flavoured ; and the Burees, or 

 melting pears, which are grafted upon it, are perfumed by it." 



The Amadotte has been long known in England. It is one of the varieties 

 which Rea says " are choice pears lately obtained out of Prance by the diligence of 

 Sir Thomas Hanmer. It is said to have been discovered in a wood in Burgundy 

 belonging to Lady Oudotte, and hence called Dame Oudotte, which has since been 

 changed into Amadotte." 



The Amadotte of M. Decaisne, which he figures in the Jardin Fruitier du 

 Museum, is evidently not the Amadotte of Merlet, Miller, Porsyth, and Diel. 



