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XLIX. Account of some new Seedling Pears. In a Letter 

 to the Secretary. By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. 

 F. R. S. $c. President. 



Read April 18, 1826. 



My dear Sir, 



I have addressed to you a few grafts of six new varieties of 

 Pears, for which, as a standard tree of each, I will request a 

 place in our Garden. In the Transactions* of the Horticul- 

 tural Society, in 1810, I stated that I had amused myself in 

 attempts to create new varieties of dessert Pears, which would 

 prove capable of being grown abundantly upon standard trees, 

 in all moderately favourable situations, by fertilizing the blos- 

 soms of the Swan's Egg, and other hardy varieties, with the 

 pollen of the late winter varieties of French Pears. I chiefly 

 employed for this purpose the seeds of the Swan's Egg Pear, 

 under the expectation of being able to combine, in some of 

 the offspring, its hardiness and disposition to bear fruit, with 

 the properties and qualities of the more late and excellent 

 French varieties; and considering that the possession of a 

 number of such varieties might prove very valuable acquisi- 

 tions to almost every class of society, I made the experiment 

 upon a large scale, and raised many hundred seedling plants. 

 In the last spring between forty and fifty of these newly 

 formed varieties produced blossoms ; and although the season 

 was so unfavourable that nearly all the blossoms of the coarse 



* See Transactions of the Horticultural Society, Vol. i. page 180. 



