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lieie mentioned aie the best sorts known at present, it would be needless to enumerate a great quan¬ 
tity of ordinary fruit; since every one who intends to plant fruit-trees, would rather choose those 
which are the most valued, the expence and trouble being the same fora bad sort of fruit as a oood 
one. Indeed I have inserted many more than are really worth planting, in order to please such 
who are fond of great variety; but whoever has a mind to make choice of such only as are good, 
may easily distinguish them, by attending to the account given of each sort, and hereby every per¬ 
son is at liberty to please himself; for it is not every one who prefers a Beurre Pear, though that is 
generally esteemed the very best in its proper season; there are some who admire the Messire Jean, 
for the firmness of its flesh, which to others is a great objection against it; and as some esteem the 
breaking, and others the melting Pears, I have distinguished them by their descriptions in such a 
manner, that every one may make choice of the kinds of fruit which are agreeable to their palate; 
and the different seasons in which each kind is in eating, being exhibited (allowing a little for the 
difference of seasons, which are earlier some years than others) it is not very difficult for a person to 
make a collection of good Pears to succeed each other throughout the season of these fruits, both 
for eating and baking. 
The time of each fruit ripening, as here set down, is taken at a medium for seven years, and in 
the neighbourhood of London, where all sorts of fruit generally ripen a fortnight or three weeks 
earlier than almost any part of England; and it is very obvious to every person who will attend to 
the culture of fruit-trees, that their time of ripening is accelerated by long cultivation; for many of 
the sorts of Pears, which some years past rarely became ripe in England, unless they grew against 
the best aspected walls, are now found to ripen extremely well on espaliers and dwarfs; and those 
Pears which seldom were in eating till January, are ripe two months earlier. There is also a very 
great difference in their time of ripening in different seasons, for I have known the fruit of a Pear- 
tree in one year all ripe and gone by the middle of October, and the very next year the fruit of the 
same tree has not been fit to eat till the end of December, so that allowance should be made for 
these accidents. The Besi de Chaumontelle Pear, about forty years past, was seldom fit to eat 
before February, and has continued good till the middle of April, but now this Pear is commonly 
ripe in November; and when it is planted on a warm soil, and against a good aspected wall, it is in 
eating the middle or end of October. This forwarding of the several kinds of Pears, may be in 
some measure owing to the stocks upon which they are grafted; for if they are grafted upon early 
summer Pear stocks, they will ripen much earlier than when they are upon hard winter Pear stocks ; 
and if some of the very soft melting Pears were grafted upon such stocks as are raised from the most 
austere fruit, such as are never fit to eat, and of which the best Perry is made, it would improve 
those fruits, and continue them much longer good; or if the common free stocks were first grafted 
with any of these hard winter Pears, and when they have grown a year, then to graft or bud these 
soft melting Pears upon them, it would have the same effect; but the Pears so raised will require a 
year's more growth in the nursery, and consequently cannot be sold at the same price as those which 
are raised in the common method, these requiring to be twice budded or grafted, so that there is 
double labour, beside standing a full year longer; but this difference in the first expence of the 
trees, is not worth regarding by any person who is desirous to have good fruit; for the setting out 
in a right way is that which every one should be the most careful of, since by mistaking at first, 
much time is lost, and an after expence of new trees often attends it. 
Another cause of fruits ripening earlier now than they formerly did, may be from the length of 
time they have been cultivated; for it is very certain, that most sorts of plants have been greatly 
forwarded and improved by culture, within the space of thirty or forty years, as may be known 
from the several sorts of esculent plants, which are cultivated in the kitchen gardens, and of which 
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