INTRODUCTION". 



ix 



few years become victims of bad culture, existing in a sort of 

 living death. 



There is, perhaps, no fruit tree that claims or deserves our 

 attention equal to a pear. How delicious is a fine melting pear 

 all the winter months ! and to what a lengthened period in the 

 spring may they be brought to table ! Till lately, Bern-re Ranee 

 has been our best spring pear ; but this is a most uncertain 

 variety, rarely keeping till the end of May, and often ripening 

 in January and February. 



The new Belgian pears, raised many years since by the late 

 Major Esperen, and more recently by Monsieur Gregoire, are 

 likely for the present to be the most valuable for prolonging 

 the season of rich melting pears ; and of these Josephine de 

 Malines and Bergamotte d'Esperen are especially deserving of 

 notice ; they have the excellent quality of ripening slowly. 

 But improvement will, I have no doubt, yet take place ; for 

 pears are so easily raised from seed, and so soon brought into 

 bearing by grafting or budding them on the quince stock, that 

 new and valuable late pears will soon be as plentiful as new 

 roses. 



In the following pages it will be seen that I strongly advo- 

 cate the culture of pyramidal fruit trees. This is no new idea 

 with me. I have paid many visits to the Continental gardens 

 during the greater portion of my active life of business, and 

 have always admired their pyramidal trees when Avell managed, 

 and I have for many years cultivated them for my amusement ; 

 but, owing to a seeming prejudice against them among some 

 English gardeners, I was for some time deterred from recom- 

 mending them, for I thought that men older than myself must 

 know better; and when I heard some of our market-gardeners 

 and large fruit-growers in the neighborhood of London scoff: 

 at pears grafted on the quince stock, as giving fruit of very 

 inferior flavor, I concluded, like an Englishman, that the 



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