^ Plate XVIII. 
I 
their form and foliage. The largest orchards of this variety are now to be found in the parishes of 
Dymock in Gloucestershire, and Newland in Worcestershire. Very few Farms on the Eastern side 
of Herefordshire are without Barland pear trees, shewing how extensively this favourite variety was 
at one time cultivated. Evelyn several times mentions the Barland Pear , “ and as no trees of this 
variety ” says Mr. Knight “ are found in decay from age in favourable soils, it must be concluded 
that the identical trees which were growing when Evelyn wrote, still remain in health and vigour. 
The specific gravity of the juice is 1070.” 
The fruit Evelyn describes as “of such insufferable taste that hungry swine will not 
smell to it, or if hunger tempt them to taste, at first crash, they shake it out of their mouths ” : but of 
the Perry he speaks much more favourably. “ There’s a Pear in Bosberry and that neighbourhood, 
which yields the liquor richer the second year than the first, and so, by my experience very much 
amended the third year.” Another writer says : “ It hath many of the Masculine Qualities of 
Cyder. It is quick, strong, and heady, high coloured and retaineth a good vigour . . . many 
years before it declineth . . . As it approacheth to the Apple Cyder in Colour, Strength and 
excellence in Durance, so the bloom cometh forth of a damask Rose Colour like Apples, not like 
other Pears.” Herefordshire Orchards by J. Beale, 1730. 
The juice is rich in colour and full in flavour, its chemical analysis by Mr. G. H. With, 
F.R.A.S., is as follows :— 
Density of fresh juice ... 
1*0421 
Ditto after 24 hours exposed to air 
1*0435 
One hundred parts by weight contains 
Sugar 
10-670 
Tannin, Mucilage, &c.... 
2-763 
Water 
86-567 
100*000 
Mr. Knight in his Pomona says “ many thousand hogsheads of Perry are made 
from this fruit in a productive season ; but the Perry is not so much approved by the present as it 
was by the original planters. It however sells well, whilst new, to the merchants, who have, probably, 
some means of employing it with which the public are not acquainted ; for I have never met with it 
more than once within the last twenty years out of the district in which it is made, and many 
Herefordshire planters have applied to me in vain, for information respecting its disappearance. It 
may be mingled in considerable quantity with strong new port without its taste becoming perceptible ; 
and as it is comparatively cheap, it possibly sometimes contributes one of the numerous ingredients 
of that popular compound.” 
Barland Perry does not bottle well. It curdles in the bottles. It is usually drunk in 
Herefordshire as soon as made, where it is considered very wholesome and singularly beneficial in 
nephritic complaints. 
