242 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
December 19, 1891. 
incurved, and golden-yellow with a bronzy reverse ; 
but they behave differently in different blooms, and 
sometimes become more or less reflexed showing the 
upper and yellow surface only. The variety would 
of course be classed with the Japanese incurved, 
although so different from Henry Perkins. 
Chrysanthemum Thomas Selwood. —Yet an¬ 
other incurved Japanese sort is added to the list by 
the variety here named, and which was raised by 
Mr. Owen. The outer florets are spreading, while 
a large number of the inner ones are incurved 
covering over the centre- All are of a bright clear 
yellow. 
Chrysanthemum Mrs, J. S. Fogg. —The plant 
of this American variety is of good habit, and bears 
heads of good average size, and which may be 
classed amongst the Japanese reflexed. The florets 
are of a bright chrome yellow, much twisted and re¬ 
volute at the edges, very compactly arranged, form¬ 
ing dense heads. 
Chrysanthemum Lizzie Cartledge.— For des¬ 
cription of this American variety see p. 194. 
Chrysanthemum Rivelyn.— This is a true in- 
urved, a sport from the yellow Mrs. Norman Davis, 
nd certainly a fine thing. The flowers are of large 
size for that type, and of a beautiful golden-bronze 
with a gold centre. The bronzy hue first makes its 
appearance at the base of the outer florets and gradu¬ 
ally spreads upwards till the greater part of the 
bloom assumes that hue. All of the above mentioned 
six Chrysanthemums were exhibited by Mr. Robert 
Owen, Castle Hill, Maidenhead, who received Awards 
of Merit for them. E. G. Hill was also shown by 
Messrs. J. R. Pearson, Chilwell, Notts, who also 
received an Award of Merit. 
Chrysanthemum Mrs. H. Simpkins.— The flower 
heads of this decorative variety are about the size 
of those of Mrs. J. Carter, but they are of a much 
brighter yellow. Their leading characteristic, how¬ 
ever, is the deeply lacerated florets, which are cut 
into three or four thread-like segments for three parts 
of their length. The bloom as a whole is nearly 
globular, and presents a curious but attractive ap¬ 
pearance. The variety is likely to become popular 
for decorative purposes, as it branches and flowers 
very freely. The leaves are also finely and deeply 
five-lobed. A large flowering branch of it was exhi¬ 
bited by Mr. Simpkins, gardener to R. J. Measures, 
Esq., Camberwell, when an Award of Merit was ac¬ 
corded it. 
The undermentioned subjects were exhibited at the 
Royal Aquarium on the occasion of the National 
Chrysanthemum Society’s" Early Winter Exhibition, 
on the 9th and 10th inst., and were awarded First- 
class Certificates. 
Chrysanthemum E.’_D. Adams. —The heads of this 
Japanese variety are of great size and pure white 
with exception of the florets in the centre, which are 
yellow at least in the early stages, but may unfold 
and get white like the rest as the flower attains age. 
The spreading florets are twisted, and more or less 
interlaced with one another. The variety gives pro¬ 
mise of being useful for exhibition purposes, and 
besides the certificate, received one of the prizes 
offered by Mrs. Myers for seedlings. It was ex¬ 
hibited by Messrs. Pitcher & Manda, Hextable, 
Swanley, Kent. 
Chrysanthemum Henry Perkins.— For des¬ 
cription of this incurved Japanese sort see above. 
It was exhibited by Mr. R. Owen, Castlehill, 
Maidenhead, who besides the certificate also ob¬ 
tained one of Mrs. Myers’ prizes for it. He had only 
one bloom of the grand, new, incurved Japanese 
variety named Robert Owen, and was consequently 
debarred from taking a certificate for it, but a guinea, 
the highest award for a seedling offered by Mrs. 
Myers, was secured for it as the best seedling at the 
exhibition. 
Chinese Primula Kentish Purple. —The leaves 
of this variety are of the ordinary heartshaped form, 
but large, and deeply lobed with red petioles and 
vigorous. The flowers are very large, flat, and ver- 
million red (as seen by the dull light of the Aquarium) 
with a white line running round the five-angled, 
green eye. The variety was exhibited by Messrs. H. 
Cannell & Sons, Swanley, Kent. 
Cyclamen Queen of Whites.— The heart- 
shaped and large leaves of this variety are furnished 
with large, isolated, grey blotches, which give them 
a certain decorative value. The flowers are also of 
unusual size, showing that the variety belongs to the 
Cyclamen persicum giganteum type, as distinguished 
from the smaller flowers of the more typical form. 
They are pure white, even to the mouth, with broadly 
obovate and rounded segments. A plant of it was 
exhibited by Mr. John May, Gordon Nursery, St, 
Margarets, Twickenham, Middlesex, 
FLORICULTURE. 
Midland Carnation and Picotee Society. 
We have been favoured with a copy of the first 
annual report of this vigorously managed and thriv¬ 
ing young society, which in the course of a few 
months has attained proportions which its promoters 
never dreamt of. The society was designed not to 
supplant, but to supplement the work of such other 
associations as have for their object the popularisa¬ 
tion and development of the Carnation and Picotee, 
and that its operations have not been regarded in 
any other light is evident from the fact that the 
veteran Mr. Dodwell, Mr. Turner, Mr. Douglas, 
Mr. Barlow, and many other noted growers from 
w'idely different districts gave the Birmingham show 
held in August their warmest support. 
The cash account shows a balance in hand of 
/2818s. 3d., which, with the increased financial sup¬ 
port that has been promised, has enabled the com¬ 
mittee to offer a liberal schedule of prizes for the 
coming year's exhibition. We note also that as the 
classes for single blooms originated by Mr. Robert 
Sydenham did not meet with general approval at 
the last show, the committee have decided at the 
next show to have one class for each colour and give 
four prizes in each class, but restricting the number 
of blooms which any exhibitor can show in each 
class to one. This arrangement should induce 
exhibitors to put their best strength forward in these 
classes, and so bring about a spirited competition. 
Violas v. Tufted Pansies. 
Mr. Wm. Cuthbertson, of Messrs. Dobbie & Co., 
Rothsay, has published in a gardening contemporary 
the replies he has received from various growers as 
to the advisability of retaining or rejecting the name 
of “ Tufted Pansies" for our Violas. I have in my 
correspondence with the gardening press and by pri¬ 
vate letters, ridiculed and condemned from the first, 
as misleading and incorrect, the designation of our 
decorative Violas as "Tufted Pansies," and, with the 
strong expression of opinion now given, I hope no 
one will now persist in using it; and I for one 
heartily thank Mr. Cuthbertson for eliciting and pub¬ 
lishing this chorus of disapproval. 
Violas are now very popular and their popularity 
is increasing, and I hope senders out of new varieties 
will give us only Violas of high class quality, bearing 
in mind that after all it is as a valuable early and con¬ 
tinuous blooming border decorative plant we should 
look for its first qualification. Wenow havealonglist 
of excellent kinds, and what we want are new shades 
of bright pleasing colours, retaining as much of the 
Viola character as possible, and in which there is 
improved form and good close habit. Those with 
long branching growths are objectionable, and not 
so floriferous as those of much more compact habit, 
—William Dean, Sparhhill, Birmingham, 
-- 
ABOUT PEARS* 
The history of the Pear, Pyrus communis, corres¬ 
ponds in no small degree with that of the Apple ; it 
has been known and has been under cultivation from 
a period of remote antiquity. It is found wild in 
some parts of Britain, is a native of the southern penin¬ 
sulas of Europe, and in fact almost the whole of tem¬ 
perate Europe. To assert positively that it is also 
Asiatic would be somewhat bold, as many of the seem¬ 
ingly wild varieties are probably no more than the 
remains of ancient cultivation. Some hundreds of 
years B.C., the culture of the Pear had considerably 
advanced amongst the Greeks. The Arcadians are 
said to have fed on Pears as well as Acorns. Axras is 
the old Greek name for the wild Pear, and the culti¬ 
vated form was spoken of by the Greek poet Homer 
under the name of ogxne. In modern Europe, the 
north of France and Normandy in particular is con¬ 
sidered the true Apple and Pear country. Further 
south, where the trees really come from, they do not 
thrive so well. 
Theophrastus, writing on these subjects, recom¬ 
mended his countrymen to pay particular attention to 
the grafting and pruning of fruit trees. The instruc¬ 
tions given for making trees more fertile and 
causing the fruit to be earlier are sometimes amusing; 
for to produce the first result the advice was to drive 
a Fir or Ashen peg into the body of the tree, and to 
produce the second to water them with new wine. 
*A paper read by a Member of the Chiswick Gardeners' 
Mutual Improvement Association, cn November 2/th, 
Many of the Greek and Roman superstitions have 
descended to ourselves, for even now we are some¬ 
times seriously told by some persons that they have 
known or heard of such a thing as an Apple or a 
Pear being grafted upon a Black Currant or Elder 
bush to give them the colour of these respective 
fruits. It seems quite likely that the Pear as we have 
it to-day has come of three or four different 
ancestors. The primitive parent may be correctly 
imagined in the crude form of P. communis, still to 
be found in some places ; but there can be little 
doubt that were the pedigree of the Pear in its best 
existing form within reach, it would also show the 
names of P. Achras, P. sinensis, and P. elaeagnifolia. 
The ancients had sour Crabs in their earliest form 
to deal with, but the Greek cultivators 300 or 400 
B.C- had so improved the earlier forms that they 
could count nearly a dozen kinds of Pears much 
superior to the earlier ones ; and the Romans, follow¬ 
ing their example, had just before the beginning of 
the Christian era, a list of about fifty sorts, some of 
which were much esteemed. Italy, according to 
Pliny, possessed thirty-six varieties in the time of the 
Caesars. From this time down to our own, the pro¬ 
gress of development has been slow but steady. 
In the 16th century C. Lectier gives a list of about 
300 Pears. Leroy, in his admirable work on the Pear, 
figures and describes 915 varieties. Dr. Hogg, in the 
last edition of the Fruit Manual, mentions over 1,500 
sorts, of which he describes as distinct over 700. 
The Wild Pears of Surrey. 
In a paper read before the Royal Horticultural 
Society, in 1871, by the late Mr. W. Wilson 
Saunders, some interesting facts are given regarding 
the wild Pears of Surrey. He says, “ on the high 
ground west of Charlwood, the common Pear 
occurs, apparently wild in several localities. The 
trees are to be found chiefly in hedgerows and in the 
outskirts of woods and thickets, many far removed 
from any dwelling, and where there is no probability 
of their having been planted. They occur for the 
most part singly, and their character Is much the 
same as that of the cultivated Pear when allowed to 
assume its natural habit, reaching from 20 to 30 ft, 
high, with a straight trunk of some 8 to 12 ft., then 
forming a spreading, somewhat elongated head of 
branches, of which the lower ones are more or less 
horizontal, the upper more or less ascending. 
" The trees produce a strong reddish-coloured close 
grained wood, easy to work, which is used for furni¬ 
ture ; turning a good colour by age and the applies 
tion occasionally of a little oil, 
"The trees are usually abundant flowerers and 
bearers of fruit, quite enlivening the landscape in the 
spring by their masses of white blossoms. I have 
had an opportunity of closely examining for several 
seasons successively many of these wild Pear trees at 
Greening's Farm in the district alluded to, and I 
have noted carefully the nature of the fruit pro- 
duced, The result shows that not one of them can 
be called palatable when ripe, though some are 
excellent when stewed. The Pears are in many 
instances very juicy, with a sweet but overpowering 
astringent flavour, wdiich few palates can endure. 
“ As to the orgin of the Pear tree in the Charlwood 
district, I have no facts to offer ; many of the trees 
are very old, being known as full-grown trees to some 
of the oldest inhabitants from their childhood. 
There are no old establishments in the neighbourhood 
where the trees could have sprung from, the district 
being much covered with wood.” 
The cultivation of the Pear, though very early, does 
not seem to have begun so soon as the Apple ; there 
is no mention of it that I am aware of in the Bible. 
There are several points in which these, our two 
most important hardy fruits, differ, though they are 
so closely related to each other, which it may be 
interesting to note. In constitution the Pear is not so 
hardy as the Apple, nor does it accommodate itself so 
readily to different soils. The number of good Pears 
which can be kept throughout the winter is very 
limited, whereas in the Apple we have an abundance. 
The tree is naturally more inclined to grow in a 
pyramidal form than the Apple, and when well deve¬ 
loped a pyramid Pear tree is one of the most 
pleasing objects in nature. It differs also from the 
Apple in being longer from a seedling in coming to a 
bearing condition, then again under favourable con¬ 
ditions it is much longer lived, and attains a larger 
size. Mr. Edward Lees, in his little volume, "The 
Forest and Chase of Malvern," tells us that at Bor¬ 
land in Worcestershire there are Pear tree? " as bi$ 
