JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
October 13, 1881. ] 
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Sale of Bulbs at Jlr. Stevens’ Booms, Covent Garden. 
PEARS FOR WALLS. 
ffgftfeg oW that the period of the year is approaching 
* for the planting of fruit trees, and as Pears 
will naturally receive their fair share of at¬ 
tention, it will not, perhaps, be wasting the 
space of the Journal by inviting those who are 
t) ritAfoS interested in producing fine walls of Pear trees 
CT'. to consider, if the force of modern ideas will 
permit them to do so, the possible advantages of the 
0 id system of culture that our grandfathers adopted 
with such marked success. 
Without finding any serious fault with the fashion of the 
times, which impels almost everybody to plant trees on pre¬ 
cocious stocks with the object of securing quick returns, it is 
yet worthy of some thought whether it is altogether wise to 
ignore the advantages of trees on the Pear stock for covering 
walls. For certain purposes the Quince is undoubtedly a 
valuable stock for a great number of Pears, but not for all, 
and in light and moist soils it is, perhaps, especially suitable ; 
it is not surprising that it is used, yet in good sound soil it is 
not possible that such grand trees can be produced on it as on 
the Pear stock. 
“ Once upon a time," say a generation or two ago, the pride 
and glory of many a fine garden consisted in the splendid and 
splendidly trained specimens of trees on walls. Many gentle¬ 
men and gardeners who have passed the meridian of life will 
readily call to their recollections walls covered from base to 
summit with grand trees having branches equidistant from 
each other and as straight as gun rods, with strips of wall just 
visible, but not obstrusive between, the said branches being 
from 30 to 40 feet long and wreathed with fruit from end to 
end, the produce of each tree being computed by bushels and 
not by dozens, as is the fashion now-a-days. 
Some such trees as those referred to are to be found now, but 
they are few and far between, and about equally seldom do we 
find a steady endeavour made to produce such samples of 
skilful culture and training as were produced by the gardeners 
of the past. Walls which in those days were furnished so 
completely and faultlessly, are now in too many instances mere 
examples of pomological patchwork formed by trees of all 
forms, half of them worked to death by too early and too 
heavy cropping, and the remainder miserable apologies for 
trees as regarded from the standard of the old masters of the 
ante-bedding and Coleus-growing period that has for the last 
few years appropriated the intellects and absorbed the “ skill” 
of young men of the present day, and the culture of hardy fruits 
and outdoor gardening generally appears to have been pro¬ 
portionally neglected. 
Puny pyramids on the Quince stock, pinched and root- 
pruned to accelerate their cropping and shorten their lives, 
are adapted for certain positions, and under some circumstances 
may be of temporary service. French cordons at different 
angles, and in grotesque shapes, may please the novelty-seeker, 
and some trees of the modern type well grown may be and 
are useful ; but that they should drive the true old English- 
trained trees from English gardens is at least undesirable. 
While it would be obviously unwise to refuse to adopt a new 
system possessing some points of excellence, it does not follow 
that it should be carried out to the extent of annihilating what 
is good of older methods. 
No one having experience on the subject can say that 
garden walls are, as a rule, covered as well in 1881 as they 
were in 1841. “The seasons have altered,” some may say, 
“ and Peach trees must have glass now.” Granting even all 
that, which is, perhaps, grauting too much, the objection has 
no force as applied to Pear trees ; yet Pear walls are certainly 
not what they once were, and is not the great or initial cause 
of this the custom that has become established of planting 
trees on Quince stocks almost exclusively ? If not, what is 
the cause ? 
Partly in consequence of much that has been written in 
the press, and one writer parodying another, and partly from 
taking catalogue guidance, which is necessarily brief even if 
some of it is good, it would almost seem as if the majority 
of young gardeners had forgotten, if they ever knew, that 
Pear trees will thrive on Pear stocks! Let me remind 
them that they will do so, and let me also say that on no 
other stock can such grand trees be grown and walls satis¬ 
factorily furnished. 
Let gentlemen and gardeners who have new and lofty walls 
to cover with Pears, seriously consider the advisability of plant¬ 
ing healthy trees on the Pear stock 24 or 30 feet apart accord¬ 
ing to the nature of the soil, and'devote to these trees the 
attention that is requisite for producing superior specimens, 
and they will have fine fruits in a few years, and will leave 
evidence of their skill and abundance of fruit for future gene¬ 
rations. In the meantime the spaces can be occupied with 
subsidiary cordon trees on the Quince, that will give immediate 
produce and wear out their little lives before the true old 
English trees have arrived at maturity. A wall of diagonal 
cordons, it is true, is attractive, but it appears to me that the 
great mistake that is made generally is planting one tree each 
of as many “ cordons ” as the wall will accommodate, and the 
results are, so far as I have seen, much too little fruit of the 
really first-class Pears, and too much of varieties of less 
dessert merit. With fine trees of the standard'varieties on Pear 
stocks there is an abundance of fruit for use, and a surplus for 
friends or the market. These remarks are not so much directed 
to amateur fruit-fanciers as to those whose chief duty it is to 
maintain a large and long supply of excellent produce, and at 
the same time restore what is almost a lost feature of many 
fine gardens—noble wall trees. 
The tendency to Frenchify English gardens is rather too 
pronounced, and especially as the result in nine cases out 
of ten is not good French but bad. Instead of bad French, 
then, I plead for a return to good old English in the culture 
and training of Pear trees on walls. Are there not readers 
who share in this desire, and who at the same time are 
No. 68.— You III., Third Series 
No. 1724 .—vol. LXVI., Old Series. 
