By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. 109 



I first saw this variety in the year 1826, when I thought it very 

 excellent. In the three following years it appeared to me to pos- 

 sess but little me¥it. In the last year, some of them were good ; 

 but I thought not nearly as good as they were in the year 1826. 

 A light and dry soil would, I think, render this variety uniformly 

 excellent ; but I have seen it only where the tree has grown in a 

 soil of a different kind. 



The Pitfour Pear. 



This is in size about twice that of the Swan's-egg, when grown in 

 the same soil and climate ; and in form it a good deal resembles the 

 Colmar Pear. It ripens in October and November, and in the last 

 season, the first in which it was produced, its flesh was perfectly 

 melting, and its juice rich and sweet. I thought it an excellent 

 Pear ; but I did not discover its merits till it was too late to send 

 a sample to the Society. I, in consequence, should not have 

 noticed it at the present period, but that, having had occasion for 

 some large grafts to insert into strong stocks, a great number of 

 small branches were necessarily detached from the tree, and those 

 were useless to me ; and under these circumstances, I thought it 

 better to send them, with the grafts of the other varieties, particu- 

 larly, as the tree, having borne a heavy crop the last year, affords 

 little blossom in the present. 



The above described varieties of Pears are, I think, the best 

 amongst those which the Society has seen, and the original trees 

 of all grow with great luxuriance, and health ; and as far as I have 

 had opportunities of judging, they appear to me as hardy and as 

 productive as their female parents. What the precise female parent 

 of each of the above-mentioned varieties was, I am not prepared to 

 say ; but I believe that all with the exception of the Foxley Pear, 

 and possibly the Monarch, sprang from seeds of the Swans-egg. 

 The Moor-fowl's Egg I believe to have been the female parent of 



