368 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and in a day or two had tied up in the manner just mentioned twenty- 

 seven blossoms. Ten of these envelopes contained blossoms of the 

 Beurre Pear, which (it not blooming so early as the Gansell) were the 

 only ones I could then find inastate of expansion. Fourteen (to make up, 

 with the former number, two dozen) contained blossoms from the same 

 tree, and three blossoms of the Pound Pear. From the latter, presenting 

 a large and coarse appearance, I had little expectation. I intended to 

 have done many more, but the weather getting colder, and being myself 

 not quite in health, I neglected it till it was too late. The papers were 

 not taken off till April 15, on which day the weather began to be warmer 

 without sunshine. You will please to observe that I had previously 

 cut off from all the corymbi, with which the tree was abundantly 

 furnished in every part, all the blossoms except the three lower ones, 

 as in the former year ; and that, having tied up but one of these in each 

 corymbus, I immediately cut off the two remaining ones. The blossoms 

 were operated on in different parts and aspects of the tree, for part of it, 

 as I said before, faced the south-east and part the south-west. Of the 

 ten blossoms treated with the Beurre Pear, eight set, two of which 

 afterwards fell off, but I suspect not fairly, and six are now proceeding 

 to maturity. One only of the fourteen, where its own blossoms were 

 used, now remains. Of the three wherein the Pound Pear was concerned, 

 the whole failed. The only pear now on the tree which set naturally, 

 and on which no operation was performed, was produced on a cluster of 

 blossoms, at the extremity of a leading horizontal shoot of last year, 

 which did not make its appearance until after the others had dropped 

 off. . . . The pears are now from five and a half to seven and a half 

 inches in circumference. 



" Whether the results of the above detailed experiments be such as 

 to authorize an expectation that artificial fecundation will hereafter 

 become of so much importance to gardeners in the instances just 

 alluded to as those at present recognized, of the cucumber, the melon, 

 the early bean, and the Hautbois strawberry, must be left to futurity 

 to ascertain." 



Mr. Swayne's communication is followed by a note from the 

 Secretary : — " Mr. Swayne sent to the Meeting of the Society, on 

 October 1, specimens of the Pears alluded to in the foregoing communi- 

 cation. They were unusually large, and very handsome. The cross 

 impregnation had not produced any change in the appearance of the 

 fruit, nor was any difference in flavour discovered." 



It seems perfectly clear therefore that Mr. Swayne clearly 

 recognized the value of cross-pollination in the case of some varieties 

 of pears, and some subsequent writers on fruit-growing refer to it 

 in more or less lucid terms. For instance, Mr. Harrison, in A Treatise 

 on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees (1823), advocated hand 

 pollination of pears which flower abundantly but fail to set fruit, 

 a common experience, he says.* He does not, however, make it clear 



* Loc. ext. p. 148. 



