1879.] 
PEAR BEURRK GIFFARD. 
25 
Little Pedlington itself would recoil from tire 
proposal, and the mighty mass of florists are 
men too large of soul to harbour petty jealousies. 
There was a time when exhibitions were con¬ 
fined to a“ town and district five miles around.” 
Now, florists take in the world. 
I have not the honour to know Mr. Beachey, 
but I think I may v'enture to assume my ex¬ 
perience has been as lengthy and as varied as 
his. I have had the pleasure to know many 
aspirants to fame in the past, and I trust I 
shall be spared to know many more in the 
future ; but as amongst Carnations and Picotees, 
I have never known one, and I believe I never 
shall know one, who, having “patiently ac- 
c[uired ” the art of growing a good flower, but 
not having a knowledge of how to show it, 
could not, ivhen he desired it, obtain the needed 
help to place him on a level with his compeers. 
Never yet in a long floral life did I know a 
frank appeal for help meet other than warmest 
response. Never yet did I know a skilled florist 
refuse to give the fullest, freest instruotion. 
Once, twice, or thrice in a life-time we may 
perhaps meet with a pitiful Jack Horner, who 
gets into a corner to eat his floral pie ; but the 
plums in that pie are fearfully unwholesome, 
uneasy of digestion, and unhealthy in their 
results, whilst the great body of florists abound 
in good-fellowship and in the frankest of com¬ 
munion. Eestriction is for ever proposing to 
bring his competitors down to the level of his 
own acquirements, (narrow acquirements, in¬ 
deed !) Liberty opens wide the door, and cheers 
on the best in the race. Isolation hugs her gift 
to her sterile breast, only to make it barren. 
Communion, always abounding, ever imparts 
and ever finds her gifts increase. And so it 
will be to the end. 
Some regulation is, of course, necessary in 
shows, so that the race, or the results of the 
race, shall not be all to the strong. Weaker 
members, whilst always invited into the open, 
should yet have a course from which the 
stronger competitor should be excluded; but this 
is very different, both in principle and practice, 
to the proposal to compel florists to evolve 
their knowledge and their art only from their 
own heads.— E. S. Dodwell. 
THE BELLE LYONNAISE ROSE. 
f HIS is one of the most beautiful of Tea- 
scented Boses. The flowers are large, 
full, of fine form, and of a canary- 
colour, changing to white. It is a robust and 
free grower, and does best when trained up a 
south wall; but to have it fine, it should be 
grown under glass. We have a plant of it 
here thus situated. It is on the Brier, is 
planted inside, in a house devoted to general 
purposes, and is trained along the front of the 
house, pretty near to the glass. It furnishes a 
quantitj^ of flowers during the spring months- 
It also flowers freely during the autumn months; 
indeed, we have had a good many blooms of 
great delicacy of colouring during the past 
autumn, up to a few weeks ago. As an autumn 
bloomer it is invaluable. We have some plants 
of Marcchal Niel in an adjoining house treated 
in a similar manner ; these furnish a quantity 
of blossoms during the spring, but they give us 
very few in the autumn.—M. Saul, Stoiirton. 
PEAR BEURRE GIFFARD. 
[Plate 481.] 
CppN this we have one of our ver}^ best early 
6j ^ Pears, and one deserving of far more cx- 
tended cultivation than it has yet secured. 
Some confusion seems to have arisen, owino- to 
this variety having got mixed up with the 
Peach Pear, Doyenne d’Ete, &c., although it is 
really very distinct. In Hogg’s Fruit Manual, 
which is usually most reliable, it is stated to 
be “about medium-sized ; eye closed, set in a 
shallow basin.” In Scott’s Orchardist it is 
given as “ second size; eye open, set in a 
shallow basin. Our figure is a fair representa¬ 
tion, and speaks for itself. 
It may be thus described :—Fruit below 
medium size, pyriform, generally shorter than 
the figure, very even and regularly formed; 
stalk nearly an inch long, obliquely inserted. 
Skin greenish-yellow, mottled with pale red 
and russet on the sunny side; eye open, the 
segments short, set on the surface of the fruit. 
Flesh white, melting, very sweet and pleasant. 
It is a very pretty Pear, a free grower, and 
great cropper. The fruit ripens in August, 
succeeding that of the Doyenne d’Ete and 
Citron des Oarmes. 
The Beurre Giffard, observes M. F. Burvenich, 
in his remarks accompanying a plate of this 
variety, published recently in the Bulletin 
d’Arhoriculture de Floriculture et de Culture 
Potaej'ere (iii., 5), forms rather a pretty and 
regular pyramid. Like the majority of good 
French Pears, it came from Anjou. It was 
originally found as a wilding in 1825, by M. 
NicholasGiffard,ofFouassieres, near Angers, and 
was first described in 1840 in the Bulletin of the 
