OF GARDENING, 



xxiii 



domiciliated themselves, if the situation were at all favorable. 

 Many of these orchards remain to this time in a sufficient state 

 of preservation to prove to us, that they were planted by 

 people who cultivated them upon good and scientific prin- 

 ciples. One in particular is still remaining at Holm-Lacy in 

 Herefordshire, where the trees are in a very healthy state, and 

 yield sufficient crops to render them a valuable acquisition to 

 the clergyman, in whose garden the greater number of them 

 now flourish. It was in this place that William Fitz-swain, in 

 the reign of Henry the Third, founded a Premonstratensian 

 canonry, and it was by the residentiary canons that this 

 orchard was planted. One pear-tree in particular deserves 

 mention, which has been proved to have produced four hun- 

 dred and forty bushels of fruit in one season, and that fruit 

 produced fifteen hogsheads of perry, of one hundred and 

 twenty gallons each. 



Other instances occur of trees of equal age still flourishing 

 with vigour, and bearing an abundance of fruit. In an or- 

 chard on the Braedalbane estates, on the margin of Loch Tay, 

 one tree still remains, which is similar to the tree at Holm- 

 Lacy, not only in the abundance of its produce, but is also 

 exactly the same sort of pear, and has in all likelihood stood 

 there since the orchard was first planted, which we find 

 was effected by the Queen of Alexander the Third, of Scot- 

 land, who brought a convent of nuns from Scoone, and 

 built a nunnery on the island, of which the remains are still 

 to be seen. These trees, if we may use the expression, have 

 stood their allotted time in their natural or original po- 

 sition ; and when overtaken by old age, have laid themselves 

 prostrate on the ground, and from their old trunks and layers 

 branches have emitted roots, and their lateral branches have 

 taken a perpendicular direction, and in their turn have be- 

 come large trees, like the Phoenix out of the ashes of its 

 parent. 



The longevity of the pear is perhaps only exceeded by that 

 of the oak, the chestnut, and the cedar, at least it attains to 

 a greater age than any other fruit-tree with which we are ac- 

 quainted. These old pear-trees have adopted a rather un- 

 common mode of propagation, or rather prolongation of theii 



