INTRODUCTION. 



foreigners were very ignorant, and very far behind us in the 

 culture of fruit trees. 



It was only by repeated visits to foreign gardens that this 

 prejudice was dispelled; and when I saw the beautiful pear- 

 trees in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris under the management 

 of Monsieur Cappe, alluded to in Gardeners' Chronicle, ~No. 28, 

 1847, I felt convinced that our neighbors excelled us in the 

 management of fruit trees adapted to the open borders of our 

 gardens. I have, therefore, endeavored to make the culture 

 of pyramidal trees easy to the uninitiated ; and, having profited 

 largely by experience in attending to it with my own hands, I 

 trust that my readers will benefit by the result. 



A humid mild climate seems extremely favorable to the 

 well-doing of the pear on the quince stock. Jersey, with its 

 moist warm climate, as is well known, produces the finest pears 

 in Europe : these are for the most part from trees on quince 

 stocks. The western coast of Scotland, I have reason to know, 

 is favorable for the culture of pear trees on the quince ; and 

 within these very few years Ireland has proved remarkably 

 so, more particularly in the south, where some of our finest 

 varieties of pears on quince stocks are cultivated with per- 

 fect success. 



