340 THE FLORIST AND 



our climate, merit a wall, where, in fact they are never so good as in the 

 open ground. When a considerable number of fruits is observed to have 

 reached the point of maturity, and when, with a slight pressure of the 

 thumb, the stalk is readily detached, without twisting, at its junction with 

 the spur, a portion of the fruit should then be gathered, and allowed to ac- 

 quire their full maturity in the fruit-room. This first gathering will ease 

 the tree, and the whole of the nutritive sap will be directed towards the re- 

 maining fruits, which, in consequence, becomes much finer ; and these are 

 gathered in the same manner, and successionally. The operation of suc- 

 cessional gathering, called, in French gardening terms, V entreeuellement, 

 may be very advantageously followed up, because all the fruits on a tree 

 never ripen simultaneously ; and that they may acquire full perfection, it is 

 important that they should be left on the tree to attain the necessary degree 

 of maturity, known to the practised eye by certain signs, which it would be 

 difficult to point out without entering into tedious details. 



With regard to the late autumn, winter, and spring Pears, the same pro- 

 ceeding is adopted ; it is only by successional gathering, Ventrecuellement, 

 that we can hit upon the proper time, and know the happy medium between 

 gathering too early or too late. The gathering of these fruits, in season 

 as above mentioned, commences about the middle of September, and con- 

 tinues till the end of October, or till just before the fall of the leaves. 



When some fruits, neither bruised nor pierced by insects, of a late variety 

 of Pear begin to drop, although not affected by strong winds, nor by the 

 continued drought which we sometimes experience in our climate towards 

 the end of September ; and when the leaves begin to turn yellow and fall 

 from the tree, an attentive and experienced person will perceive that the 

 period of gathering is close at hand. Whatever may be the influence of 

 the phases of the moon with regard to the period of gathering, I have ob- 

 served, for more than twenty years, that a great number of varieties gathered 

 two or three days before the full moon in September, kept exceedingly well, 

 without specking, in the fruit-room, where they acquired the full degree of 

 perfection which the sorts respectively possess ; whereas, by leaving all the 

 fruit on the tree, without having recourse to successional gathering, I have 

 seen a great portion of it drop successively during the last quarter of the 

 moon ; and moreover the fruits, whether fallen or gathered late, did not 

 keep well in the fruit-room, nor did they acquire their full flavor. I ought 

 here to remark that these observations have been made with regard to trees 

 grafted on Pear stocks, and cultivated in the open ground, in a light deep 



