320 



FRUIT CULTURE: 



and greatly improve tlie appearance of garden walls. Vfe 

 must also adopt tlie improved kind of espalier wiiicli tlie 

 Prench are beginning to employ so extensively, and which 

 is elsewhere described and figured. 



Of all our wants in connexion with the Pear, that of the 

 spread of good varieties is perhaps the greatest. Naturally, 

 or rather I should say in a wild state, the Pear is a poor 

 fruit about an inch and a half long ; and from this in the 

 course of thousands of years the splendid race we now 

 possess has sprung. Scattered through our gardens and 

 orchards in all parts of this kingdom, there are scores of 

 kinds which are practically of httle more use than the wild 

 fruit trees of the woods and hedgerows. But apart from all 

 these worthless varieties, named and imnamed, that occupy 

 valuable ground, there are numbers which are regularly 

 sold in our nurseries, possessing fine names and pedigrees, 

 and yet which are practically useless to the cultivator, and it 

 may be mischievous to the amateur. Let us suppose the case 

 of a person wishing to commence Pear culture — he has some 

 slight knowledge of other branches of horticulture, and expects 

 that the long list of the varieties of Pears which he finds in his 

 nurseryman^s catalogue will resemble each other pretty much 

 as his Verbenas or Pansies do. Taken by the difl^'erent names 

 and descriptions, he goes in for collection instead of selection, 

 seeks variety and finds disappointment. The truth is that a 

 wide selection of varieties is an evil in every way. It 

 requires much sagacity on the part of men who have studied 

 gardening all their lives to know what to avoid in these 

 lists; how very dangerous, then, for the amateur, or for 

 those who have neither amateur nor professional knowledge 

 of the matter, to make a selection ! Let us glance for a 

 moment into some of the fruit catalogues. It is needless 

 for us to state how much the Pear varies. Here is a cata- 

 logue naming, describing, and numbering nearly 400 kinds. 

 What a danger for those who suspect not how few are the 

 really good varieties of Pears suited to this climate ! People 

 suppose that giving long lists of this kind is for the sake of 

 selling a great number of varieties ; but that course would 

 be so clearly a mistaken one^ that one cannot suppose an 



