THE CORDON SYSTEM OF GROWING PEARS AT HOLME LACY. 
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peculiarity of growth and its abundance of fruit. In the Parish Register of Holme Lacy, for 
the year 1776, is the following entry : 
“Mem. It is likewise inserted as a great natural curiosity, that the great Pear Tree upon the Glebe 
adjoining to the Vicarage house produc’d this year fourteen hogsheads of Perry, each hogshead containing one 
hundred gallons.” 
Since this time, tradition states that it has yielded fifteen, sixteen, and upon one occasion, 
as much as twenty hogsheads of perry in a single season. 
It has been well described by Duncumb in his Agriculture (1813) in these terms : 
“ An extraordinary (pear) tree growing on the glebe land of the parish of Hom-Lacey, has more than 
once filled fifteen hogsheads in the same year. When the branches of this tree in its original state became long 
and heavy, their extreme ends necessarily fell to the ground, and taking fresh root at the several points where they 
touched it, each branch became a new tree, and in its turn produced others in the same way. Nearly half an 
acre of land remains covered at the present time. Some of the branches have fallen over the hedge into an 
adjacent meadow, and little difficulty would be found in extending its progress ” (p. go.) 
The tree is very curious and interesting at the present time. In the vicarage garden the 
group of stems is very picturesque, and several of the trees rise to a height of from thirty to forty 
feet. There are still nine stems on the lawn, one in the hedge, and seven in the adjoining meadow. 
Some creeping prostrate stems, and a few upright ones have been removed for lawn improvement. 
The fruit trees in the garden have a circumference of from 7 ft. to 9 ft. 6 inches in the bole, and 
added together, the trees give a total circumference of no less than 94 feet. 
In another meadow at a little distance, is a complete grove of the same kind of Pear tree. 
They all seem to have sprung from one original tree creeping along the ground in the same way as 
those in the garden have done. Its trunk lies prostrate and perishing whenever a new tree is not 
springing from it. The trees grow closely together and form a cluster nearly forty-four yards in 
diameter. This group grows upon land which formed part of the glebe, until the year 1875 when 
it was exchanged for other land belonging to the domain, more convenient for the Vicarage. 
PI. SCUDAMORE STANHOPE. 
