224 THE KITCHEN-GARDEN, [chap. vii. 
serted by some gardeners, that riders on the 
walls, and tall standards in the orchard, 
come into bearing earlier than dwarf stand¬ 
ards, unless the branches of the dwarfs are 
suffered to grow very long, and are curiously 
bent and twisted to produce depositions of 
sap. Probably, however, the true cause of 
the dwarf standards not bearing is, that, in 
some cases, they have been planted in the 
deep rich soil of the kitchen-garden, in¬ 
tended for culinary vegetables; while the 
trees in the orchard, compared with them, 
were in poor light soil, and those against 
the wall in a prepared border. 
There is perhaps no fruit that has been so 
much improved by cultivation as the pear; 
and this extraordinary improvement has 
been principally effected by the exertions 
of Professor Van Mons of Louvain, near 
Brussels. This gentleman, towards the lat¬ 
ter end of the last century, having turned 
his attention to the culture of fruit-trees, 
conceived the idea that new varieties of 
pears might be raised scientifically; and the 
result of his first experiment was that he 
obtained four pears very superior to the 
