chap, vii.] THE PEAR. 225 
kinds previously known: these kinds were 
the Passe Colmar, the Beurre Spence, the 
Beurre de Ranz (commonly called the Beurre 
Ranee), and the Beurre d’hiver. Encouraged 
by this success, the Baron Van Mons re¬ 
peated his experiments every year, and thus 
raised above a hundred thousand new kinds 
of pears; and though by far the greater part 
of these proved in the end not worth grow¬ 
ing, many very valuable pears have been 
obtained. Van Mons’s theory is to sow the 
most perfect seed of the best pear of any 
given sort that he can procure; then to 
force the seedling as soon as possible into 
fruit, and to sow the best seed it produces, 
and thus to proceed till the fifth or sixth, or 
tenth or twelfth generation. In this manner 
coarse but highly-flavoured fruits were soft¬ 
ened down, and produced some of exquisite 
flavour; and among others, the well-known 
Marie Louise is said to have been the de¬ 
scendant, in the fifteenth generation, of a 
very coarse and harsh-flavoured parent. The 
Glout morceau, one of the very best of the 
Flemish pears, if kept till it is quite ripe, 
is another variety, said to be similarly 
Q 
