244 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ November, 
should be retained for flower-shows, committee meetings, and town gardening ; 
experimental gardening there, except as relates to town gardening, seems to me 
undesirable, and no more money should be spent there than the residents’ sub¬ 
scriptions, and the rent paid for the gardens for horticultural purposes suffice to 
cover. Experimental gardening should be carried on at Chiswick. Surely the 
Society with its Council, its Committees, and their published proceedings, its 
flower-shows, its town and country gardens, should be able to draw thousands of 
subscribers and find ample funds for all legitimate work. But whether look¬ 
ing to the fashionable public or the general public for support, that public must, 
of course, be studied, courted, and won.— William Paul, F.R.H.S., Waltham 
Cross , Herts. 
CHAUMONTEL AND OTHER PEARS AT FLOORS. 
A.* WAS not aware till this year that Chaumontel Pears would grow so large as 
djj they do, so far North as this. We have several fruits that will weigh more 
fvf than a pound each. I got a box of 50 sent me last year from Jersey, and 
c tj> none of them were heavier than those I have just gathered from a west wall. 
Gansel’s Bergamot and Knight’s Monarch are also unusually large, and so is 
Beurre Ranee, all excellent winter pears—for although the Bergamot can scarcely 
be called a winter pear, yet we have it keeping till the New Year.. I never saw 
a better sample of Marie Louise—large and beautifully coloured. A heavy 
watering with liquid manure in June no doubt tended to increase the size greatly. 
Easter Beurre does well on the same site, but it has been cropped rather heavily, 
and they are not so large as they would have been. This, the finest of all winter 
pears, is very valuable in the months of March and April. Where trees are, 
and these sorts are not, I would advise fruit-budding them in quantity on bare 
portions of the stem; it is not too late to do this, if the weather keeps open. All 
those kinds I have mentioned here, and many more, are on the pear stock, and 
are large trees, but have still room for extension, which I consider the life of a 
fruitful tree, having taken out rider-trees a year or two ago from between them. I 
think a south or west pear-wall planted with those first-class winter pears, is a 
valuable acquisition in a garden, and in my estimation ranks next to a house of 
Lady Downe’s Grapes, when one is expected to present an eatable dessert from 
the New Year and onwards.— Henry Knight, Floors. 
THE EDINBURGH CHAMPION CLUSTERS OF GRAPES. 
DINBURGH may well be proud of its recent International Fruit Show 
(held on September 15 and 16 last), since, over and above its general 
success, there were amongst the exhibits on that occasion, the two largest 
clusters of Grapes on record. The accompanying illustrations, for the 
use of which we are indebted to the Gardeners’ Chronicle , show these magnificent 
clusters as they lay on their respective exhibition-trays, the figures being prepared 
from photographs taken during the exhibition. The credit of growing the bunch 
