212 On fertilizing the Blossoms of Pear Trees. 



extremity of a leading horizontal shoot of last year, which did 

 not make its appearance till after the others had dropped off. 

 This circumstance, by the way, proves that the fruiting buds 

 of the Pear do not invariably require three years* for their 

 perfection, since the bud, naturally the most productive on the 

 tree in question, could not have been visible at farthest before 

 the middle of last summer. As the Pears are now from five and 

 a half to seven and a half inches in circumference, I consider 

 them as past all danger of failure, or rather, that they will only 

 fail through the application of violence. Three are in a line 

 within the space of twelve inches near the centre of the tree, 

 and one is on a branch which I considered, at the time of the 

 operation, to be the most unlikely to succeed, as being in the 

 most exposed situation. 



Whether the result of the above detailed experiments be 

 such as to authorize an expectation that artificial assistance in 

 vegetable fecundation will hereafter become of so much im- 

 portance to gardeners in the instances just alluded to as in 

 those at present recognized, of the Cucumber, the Melon, the 

 early Bean, and the Hautbois Strawberry, must be left to 

 futurity to ascertain. 



I am, dear Sir, 

 Your obliged humble Servant, 



Dyrham, GEORGE SwAYNE. 



August 2, 1822. 



* See Horticultural Transactions, Vol. III. p. 151. 



