tf08 HORTICULTURAL TOUR, 



toms ; the more vigorous of these are from twelve to 

 fifteen, or even eighteen feet in height, and yet they have 

 sprung from seed sown in 1812 or 1813. We measured 

 the largest ungrafted tree raised from the sowing made in 

 spring 1812 ; it was fully twenty-five feet high, and the 

 stem, about three or four inches above the soil, was a foot 

 and a half in circumference*. Many of the pear-trees 

 were now in fruit. The pears were of good size and ap- 

 pearance, especially considering that the trees were stand- 

 ards, and placed close together. The crowded state of the 

 trees has been already noticed ; even the larger are often 

 not more than four feet apart, and it not unfrequently 

 happens, that very small trees are placed between these, 

 filling up every interstice. This must be very prejudicial, 

 not only in robbing the soil, but in depriving the principal 

 trees of the little room and air which they would otherwise 

 enjoy. Those which are free from these subsidiary plants, 

 form much finer trees. 



The experience of Mr Van Mons confirms what has 

 been observed by British horticulturists, — -that the fruit 

 produced by a seedling tree in the first year of bearing, af- 

 fords by no means a fair criterion of its future merit. If a 

 pear or an apple possess promising qualities, a white and 

 heavy pulp, with juice of rather pungent acidity, it may be 

 expected, in the second, third and subsequent years, greatly 



• In the autumn of 1817, Messrs Thomas and Robert McKen of Tro- 

 quhair sent to the Horticultural Society specimens of the fruit of a seedling 

 pear-tree, raised from pips sown in 1810. This was the first season of fruit 

 being produced, yet it was of a large size, nearly equal in that respect to the 

 E[x;rgnc, or the Chaumontellc. If, in the comparatively bleak and stormy 

 climate of Scotland, a pear-tree, in the seventh year from the seed, can yield 

 •u'h fruit, ire need the less to wonder at Mr Van Mons's success in the 

 course of four or five years at Brussels, where the climate is so much more 

 genial 



