THE CORDON SYSTEM OF GROWING PEARS AT HOLME LACY. 
97 
Many of the best Autumn Pears do not keep long, and it seems undesirable, in small gardens, 
to grow them in large quantities, for example, in the place of three trees on the pear stock trained in 
the ordinary horizontal way, thirty Cordon trees might readily be grown, and they would furnish an 
ample supply of ten different varieties to ripen in succession. 
The real difficulty with the Cordon System consists in making the trees grow equally to the 
full height of the wall. Some varieties will not grow so strong on the quince stock as others, the 
Easter BeurrS for example. They will form a leading fruit bud, instead of a leading wood bud, and 
hence they have to be shortened further back to a strong wood bud. Thus they will not reach the top 
of the wall so soon as those kinds which form proper terminal wood buds. Sometimes a tree fails 
altogether, and when it does so, or when an unsatisfactory variety has to be replaced, M. Du Breuil 
recommends the insertion of a broad piece of board edgeways on both sides of the fresh planted tree, 
so as to preserve its growing space from the neighbouring trees. 
The objections urged against the Cordon System of growing Pears are (i) that the original cost 
of planting so many trees is greater; this is true, but it is well met by the fact that they come into full 
bearing in 5 or 6 years, instead of in 15 or 20 years under the ordinary system : (2) that with one single 
stem the tree would be too vigorous and make wood instead of blossom. This is not found to be 
the case, for the reason that if the size of the tree is thus limited so also is the root space. 
Moreover the natural tendency of the Pear grafted on the quince stock is to form fruit buds 
more freely than wood buds : (3) It is said that the trees will not live so long under this method 
of growth. This may be so, but the Pear is a very long lived tree, and sufficient time has not yet 
elapsed to prove it. The Cordon trees at Holme Lacy have been in bearing for fourteen years 
without shewing any signs of canker or decay. They are seemingly as healthy and vigorous now 
as at the time they were planted : and (4) It is said, that the Cordon System is not adapted for 
supplying fruit in sufficient quantities for the ordinary market. This it does not pretend to do. 
For this purpose, standard trees must be had recourse to ; but how many of our choicest Pears 
refuse to ripen their fruit as standards ! 
I have written these notes as an Amateur with much diffidence, but the experiment has 
answered so admirably at Holme Lacy, that I could not refuse the pressing request of the 
Pomona Committee, to place the results on record, and thus to shew what great advantages the 
Cordon Oblique method of growing Pears affords to all who have the necessary wall space at their 
command. 
I will take this opportunity of noticing two instances of remarkable Pear trees in this 
neighbourhood : 
Worlidge mentions “a Pear tree growing near Ross in Herefordshire, in 1675, that was 
as wide in circumference as three men could encompass with their extended arms, and of so large 
a head, that the fruit of it yielded seven hogsheads of perry in one year.” 
The other is a still more remarkable tree. It grows in the Vicarage garden and adjoining 
the Glebe land, in the parish of Holme Lacy, and has been celebrated for upwards of a century for its 
