PAXTON’S 
HORTICULTURAL RE GIST ER, 
MAY, 1836. 
HORTICULTURE. 
THOUGHTS UPON THE CULTURE OF THE PEAR. 
Nottingham , February 24th, 1833. 
Sir, —Considering, from the prevailing character of your work, that 
you rather encourage than otherwise communications from corre¬ 
spondents, who, though not professionally skilled, are interested in the 
main objects of your publication, I trouble you with a few observations 
on a subject upon which you have promised some further directions 
and information. Among the fruits upon which you treat, I think the 
pear well deserving more attention than it usually meets with in most 
gardens. This may be accounted for without any imputations on the 
conductors of them. The culture of it does not require that scientific 
knowledge and professional education which the successful management 
of the vine, pine-apple, &c., demands, and, consequently, does not 
excite that emulation and inquiry which have led to so much better an 
acquaintance with the habits, qualities, and improved production of 
more favoured fruits. But if the merit of the fruit constitute the 
fairest claim to attention, I greatly doubt whether the pear may not 
compete with many of those which are only produced at much cost and 
trouble. Whenever a really good pear has appeared at table, furnished 
by the gardener at its proper season, and at its matured period of 
ripening on the shelf, and not sent in at haphazard by the housekeeper 
to “ make a dish,” it has seemed to me to have been as generally and 
as much enjoyed as our more exotic fruits. And it has this advantage 
over some of them, that whereas the different sorts of the peach and 
VOL, V.-NO. LIX. 
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