406 
THE PEAR. 
Fruit small, oval. Skin pale yellow, with a white bloom, and 
sprinkled with reddish-brown spots at maturity. Flesh adheres 
closely to the stone, yellow, and when fully ripe, of a rich, 
sprightly, sub-acid, agreeable flavour. Ripens about the last of 
September. 
Ornamental Varieties. 
There are few varieties of plums, which are considered pure- 
ly ornamental. One, however, is a remarkable exception to 
this, as it is scarcely exceeded in beauty in the month of May 
by any other flowery shrub — we mean the Double Flowering 
Sloe. It is a large shrub, only 10 or 12 feet high, with quite 
slender shoots and leaves, but it is thickly sprinkled, every 
spring, with the prettiest little double white blossoms about as 
large as a sixpence, but resembling the Lady Banks’ roses. It 
is one of the greatest favourites of the Chinese and Japanese — 
those flower-loving people. 
The Common English Sloe, or Blackthorn, ( Prunus spino - 
sa ,) is rather an ornamental tree in shrubbery plantations. The 
branches are more thorny than those of the common damson, 
and the fruit is nearly round, quite black, but covered with a 
thick blue bloom. In the spring, this low tree is a perfect 
cloud of white blossoms. 
The Double-blossomed Plum has large and handsome dou- 
ble white flowers. Except in strong soils, however, they are 
apt to degenerate and become single, and are, indeed, always 
inferiour in effect to the Double Sloe. 
The Cherry Plum we have already described. It is one of 
the fruit-bearing sorts. 
Selection of Choice Varieties. 
Rivers’ Early Favourite, Green Gage, Imperial Ottoman, Jef- 
ferson, Lawrence’s Favourite, Purple Favourite, Purple Gage, 
Coe’s Golden Drop, McLaughlin, Imperial Gage, Howard’s Fa- 
vourite, Prince’s Yellow Gage, Prune d’Agen, Reine Claude da 
Bavay, Schuyler Gage. 
CHAPTER XXI. 
The Pear. 
Pyrus communis , L. Posacece, of botanists. 
Poirier , of the French ; Birnebaum, German ; Peer , Dutch ; Pero } Italian ; 
and Pera, Spanish. 
The Pear is, undeniably, the favourite fruit of modern times, 
