298 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
January 8, 1887. 
Pear, now known in Worcestershire as the Poplar Pear, 
still one of the common perry Pears of the county. It 
is evident, from this meagre notice of Pears, that Shake¬ 
speare’s tastes were not gratified by good fruit. In 
“ The Merry Wives of Windsor” he uses the phrase, 
“ crestfallen like a dried Pear.” The plump and juicy 
Pears of our century, when fallen, rot before they wither, 
but the tough perr} r Pears wither before they rot. 
Worcestershire abounds with Pear orchards, and 
Shakespeare, had he seen these orchards in full bloom, 
would surely have expressed his admiration. There is 
no allusion in any of his plays, poems or sonnets to the 
beautiful spectacle of a Pear tree sheeted with its snow- 
white blossoms. Another country poet, Robert Herrick, 
although enthusiastic in his praise of Strawberries and 
Cherries, never alludes to Pears. Herrick spent the 
best years of his life in Devonshire, which must have 
been almost destitute of Pear trees. Sir John Suckling 
celebrates the charms of a young lady in his lines— 
‘ ‘ Her cheeks are like the Katherine Pear, 
The side that’s next the sun.” 
Batty Langley notices two Katherine Pears, the P.oyal 
and the Queen. 
Standard Pears. 
Standard Pears are utterly unsuited for small gardens, 
and should be grown in orchards only. Those who are 
blessed with old and decrepit standard trees may renew 
their vigorous growth by heading them down. In 
three years young, healthy and fruitful branches will 
replace the old and useless wood of generations. A 
difference is sometimes observed in the conduct of trees 
on the Pear stock. Some will be more fruitful and 
bear larger fruit than other trees of the same sort and 
age. This arises from the influence of the stock upon 
the graft. All Pear stocks are raised from seeds, and 
great variety, of course, exists. The difference some¬ 
times seen in the produce of trees growing side by side 
is often so great as to cause doubts of the identity of 
the fruit. 
The seedling Pear stocks imported from France are 
raised from the pips of perry Pears, and of these, two 
sorts are distinguished, one, with smooth bright leaves, 
from the district of Le Mans, and the other, woolly or 
sage-leaved, from the province of Anjou. I believe the 
pips of the wild or forest Pear are employed in 
Germany for raising stocks. 
Garden trees on the Pear stock should be either 
trained as espaliers, wall trees or pyramids. Root- 
pruning will cause unfruitful trees to bear, and those 
who have them will do well to practise it. The Pear 
stock is not fastidious about soil. My own experience 
of the Quince stock convinces me that it is the most 
useful stock for all styles of garden training ; it is 
adapted for espaliers, pyramids, bushes and cordons. 
Cordon training, although known and practised in 
England for some time, has been brought more pro¬ 
minently into fashion during the last thirty years. It 
is, perhaps, the most simple and productive of all sorts 
of training. An Oak fence 7 ft. high, planted with 
diagonal trees 18 ins. apart, in four years will produce 
a large quantity of fruit, and a wall from 12 ft. to 15 ft. 
high in five or six years will produce like results. I 
have found that pruning twice a year (in June and 
October) is sufficient to keep the trees in fruitful order. 
In the June pruning the young shoots must be stopped 
at the fifth or sixth leaf, and in October every spur 
must be pruned as close to the main stem as possible, 
avoiding any injury to the fruit buds, which are, of 
course, easily detected. Diagonal cordons may also be 
trained to wire trellises, and treated in the same 
fashion ; this is a very interesting and ornamental 
style. The single horizontal cordons and the double 
horizontal cordons, trained at 18 ins. from the ground, 
form a neat and fruitful edging to side walks. The 
five-branched vertical cordon has five upright shoots 
springing from a common horizontal base. These 
may be planted 4 ft. apart. The horizontal cordon 
has the branches trained at regular intervals from a 
main vertical stem ; this form is admirably adapted for 
espaliers by garden walks, and is very tractable and 
pleasant to manage. Vertical cordons, planted in the 
open ground 4 ft. apart, will give large crops of fruit. 
Two forms of cordon training seem to me to be very 
unpractical — i.e., vase cordon and the plan of training 
over an arched trellis ; the former is more trouble to 
manage than a bush tree and gives no better results, 
and the latter is contrary to common sense, part of the 
tree being grown in the shade. All cordons require 
the same system of pruning. Pyramid and bush trees 
on the Quince stock are charming garden trees, the 
pruning being somewhat different to that practised for 
cordon trees ; the side shoots should be pruned in June, 
and the leading shoot untouched until October, super¬ 
fluous shoots being occasionally removed during the 
summer to admit the sun ; the unpruned leading shoot 
must be shortened back in October. 
Pear Tree Management. 
Garden trees require root management, and a modified 
system of root-pruning should be practised with all. 
A circular trench, about 3 ft. from the stem of the 
tree, should be dug annually if the room for the tree is 
restricted ; in the autumn the soil in this trench should 
be refreshed with manure and fresh soil, and a surface 
dressing of artificial manure applied during the spring. 
For the latter purpose soot, superphosphate of lime and 
guano are probably the most useful. The trench and 
the manure will render the planter independent of the 
soil. If Pear-growing is to be made a certainty, 
cultivation under glass must be adopted. A glass 
house is, of course, a prime necessity ; it may be as 
plain as possible for the purposes of protection. During 
the spring the trees can be packed closely, for in the 
early period of growth they do not require much space. 
About the end of May, or when all danger of frost is 
past, many of the trees should be put out of doors, 
leaving enough in the house to stand 3 ft. from each 
other. The trees taken out of the house should be 
plunged in a border prepared for them, and the trees 
inside sunk in the soil up to the rim of the pot ; the 
sides of the pot should be perforated, but this is not an 
absolute necessity. The trees should be surface-dressed 
with manure, and watered with manure water twice or 
three times a week ; when under glass abundance of 
air must be given. Culture under glass makes a crop 
a certainty, and requires no more attention than is 
given to Melon or Cucumber growing. 
Protection to Cordon trees trained about 1 ft. from 
the ground may be given by planks on each side, placed 
on edge supported by short stakes and covered with 
mats during severe frost. Ground vineries also form 
very efficient protection, but are not so cheap as planks. 
Raising seedling Pears is always interesting, from the 
uncertainty which attends the pursuit. I have raised 
some hundreds from the best sorts knowm, which I 
have crossed in every conceivable fashion. The “Con¬ 
ference” Pear, which gained the suffrages of the 
Committee of the Pear Congress of 1885, came from a 
baking Pear, the Leon le Clerc de Laval, the pips of 
which I planted without any special design. All pips 
intended for seed should be taken from the finest and 
best developed fruit. 
Congress Pears. 
The sorts of Pears of recent introduction selected by 
the Pear Congress of 1885 were the following 
Beurre Gifford Emile d’Heyst 
Clapp’s Favourite Beurre d’Anjou 
Summer Beurre d’Aremberg Marie Benoist 
Madame Treyve 
Beurre Dumont 
Pitmaston Duchess 
President d’Osmanville 
Madame Andre Leroy 
Conference 
Beurre de Jonghe 
Rose Crassane 
Duchesse de Bordeaux 
Olivier de Serres 
Nouvelle Fulvie 
L’lneonnue. 
And for orchards and market gardens— 
Beacon Marie Louise d’Uccle 
Fertility Durondeau. 
Souvenir du Congres 
The improvement in Pears will no doubt continue, 
and in 1986 amateurs will wonder that we could be 
contented with fruit so inferior to that which they will 
enjoy, even as we are no longer satisfied with the fruits 
which charmed De la Quintinye and his friends. 
-- 
PRIZES FOR CHRYSANTHE¬ 
MUMS. 
Our readers will remember that in the spring of last 
year the National Chrysanthemum Society announced 
in their schedule that M. Delaux would offer certain 
prizes for competition at the society's exhibition in 
November, 1887. We now learn that, acting on the 
advice of several of his English colleagues, M. Delaux 
has thought it desirable to make the following modifi¬ 
cation :—1, Sixty plants of the finest and best grown 
Japanese flowers in pots, distinct varieties. First prize, 
Silver Cup, value £12. 2, Sixty cut blooms of the 
finest Japanese, distinct varieties. First prize, Silver 
Cup value, £12. 3, Twelve cut blooms of early-flowering 
Japanese, distinct varieties; and six cut blooms of early- 
flowering Pompons, Pteony-shaped or intermediate 
kinds, distinct varieties. First prize, Silver Gilt 
Medal, value £4. 
The prizes will be awarded to the nurseryman or 
amateur who shall exhibit only the new varieties 
distributed by M. Delaux in 1887. To obtain sixty 
distinct varieties, competitors will be bound to grow at 
the very least 100 plants to ensure the reqrrisite number, 
and as the price of the collection is not far short of the 
declared value of theprize, the competition certainly does 
not promise to be very severe. It will be seen that there 
are no second and third prizes offered, but probably the 
society may see their way clear to provide for these, 
as an inducement for growers to enter in good numbers. 
--- 
Hardening Miscellany. 
Berberis Jamesoni. —The subject of this note 
■ is a yellow-flowered species, and a comparatively recent 
introduction from Quitto in the Ecuador district of 
South America. In the south of Ireland it flowers and 
fruits freely. At the present time the bushes are 
covered with masses of berries, giving them the appear¬ 
ance of being embossed with ornaments of bronze and 
jet black. For indoor decoration nothing more beau¬ 
tiful or effective could scarcely be imagined than fruiting 
sprays of this Berberry mixed with Christmas Roses, 
Camellias, Azaleas, Rhododendrons and other bold 
flowers of that character at this season of the year. 
Owing to the intensity of the colouration of the berries, 
it is essential that flowers, fruits or leaves of some 
relieving character should be associated with them in 
order to show them off to the best advantage by contrast. 
A beautiful combination of such dissimilar, but perfectly 
associable subjects, could not fail to produce a fine 
effect when arranged in vases. Up till quite recently, 
only one night’s frost had been experienced in the south 
of Ireland, from whence fine fruiting sprays have been 
sent to us by Mr. W. B. Hartland, of Cork. 
The Gros Maroc Grape. —I shall be pleased 
to hear if any Grape-grower has succeeded in obtaining 
this fine Grape of a flavour equal to our popular varie¬ 
ties. I have seen it at various places in fine condition, 
but have always received the same opinion of it, viz., 
no flavour. I believe many growers have cut it down 
or inarched it with another variety. "Without doubt, 
it is a fine exhibition variety, some splendid examples 
having been staged in London during the past season. 
It sets freely ; the bunches are usually of good shape, 
and the berries large, while it possesses the rich bloom 
of the Alicante ; but, so far as my knowledge goes, it 
is not a late-keeping Grape. After November it gets 
very insipid, while its flavour is barely third-rate at 
any time. It is planted here in the Muscat-house, and 
ripened in September. The Grapes received a bad 
character in the dining-room, though their appearance 
was all that could be desired. I think, with Mr. M. 
Temple, that I should not condemn it because we have 
failed to grow it to our satisfaction ; but I much doubt 
if he will obtain any flattering reports about it.— 
James B. Riding. 
The Carnation Maggot mentioned by “R. D.” 
is not, by any means, a new visitant, having been 
noted by the late Mr. George Wygell, of New Hampton, 
some ten years ago. The mature insect is a small 
black fly with transparent wings, whose natural time 
for appearance outside I cannot state, but which is now 
to be found among indoor Carnations. The eggs are 
laid in the leaf of the Carnation the same way as are 
those of the apparently allied Celery fly, and the grub, 
eating its way down the leaf, enters the pith through a 
hole at the axil of the leaf. When once in the pith, 
they eat their way up or down as food is available, 
leaving ruin behind them. After some time, which 
seems to vary according to circumstances, the hitherto 
white grub becomes darker in colour, and at last escaping 
from the stem, envelopes itself in a covering somewhat 
resembling a piece of chaff, and attaching itself to the 
hollow side of a Carnation leaf, becomes a chrysalis, 
from which the perfect insect emerges to commence 
another circle. I think “ R. D.” rather charges this 
troublesome pest with too much in attributing to it 
the sudden dying of Carnations at the collar. It 
appears to be something of the nature of paralysis, as I 
have examined sadly too many which have died that 
way, without finding any trace whatever of the maggot. 
The only thing to mitigate the ravages wrought by the 
