108 A Report upon some new seedling Pears, 



The Winter Crassane. 



Fruit large, irregularly turbinate, with a very hollow eye. Stalk thickened, and a 

 little sunk at its insertion. Skin greenish yellow intermixed with brown, and some 

 patches of cinnamon russet. Flesh inclining to yellowish white, melting, quite buttery, 

 with very little grittiness even at the core, rich, sugary and very excellent ; it has a little 

 of the Chaumontel flavour. This is without doubt a very valuable sort. Season, 

 January. 



The merits of this Pear did not appear to me to be so great as 

 they are above represented ; but I retained very inferior samples 

 only of it ; and its first appearance was in the last autumn. I have 

 several times observed instances in which the large Crassane Pears 

 were excellent in seasons when the small fruit upon the same tree 

 was worthless ; and as this Pear is, I think, obviously, the offspring 

 of (the pollen of) a Crassane Pear, there appears a probability of 

 similar want of excellence in the small fruit. The flesh of those, 

 which I retained, was in all perfectly beurree, sweet and melting, 

 but I thought rather insipid, though better than any Crassane 

 Pear, which I tasted in the last autumn. The gentlemen, who in- 

 vestigated the merits of the variety in London, had much better 

 opportunities of judging rightly than I had, and were less likely to 

 be partially favourable, than T may have been, and I therefore sub- 

 mit to their opinion. I thought it for the season, a good Pear, 

 though inferior to the Monarch, the Althorp Crassane and the 

 Eastnor Castle Pears, of the same season, and two others, of which 

 I did not send samples. In weight it greatly exceeds those, and I 

 entertain no doubt of its proving a valuable variety. The growth 

 of the original tree of this variety is enormously rapid, and it 

 blossoms very abundant in the present spring. 



Whitfield. 



Colour of a ripe Swan's-egg, rather less russety. Flesh melting, sweet and good, but 

 dry. Not first rate. Season, November. 



