October 13, 1894. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
105 
subjects. Now that the flower stems have completely 
died away, and the weather is cool and moist, this 
plant may be divided into pieces of convenient size 
and re-planted where desired. 
---*»- 
GLEICHENIAS. 
Amongst the whole Fern family, large as it is, and 
boasting as it does, so many elegant and beautiful 
members—very few equal, and certainly there are 
none that surpass these beautifnl plants. As elegant 
in appearance as Ferns can well be, not a single 
vestige of stiffness or of undue formality remains to 
mar their beauty. The genus was named in com¬ 
pliment to W. F. Gleichen, a German botanist of 
the eighteenth century, and comprises some thirty 
species or thereabouts. Gleichenias have acquired 
the unenviable notoriety of being difficult to grow ; 
but, like many another plant, this difficulty has in 
many cases been more or less exaggerated. 
Although they are natives of tropical and sub¬ 
tropical regions, they will, under cultivation, succeed 
remarkably well in the cool fernery. A compost of 
good peat and sand, a little turfy loam, and a few 
pieces of charcoal, and sandstone, will 
meet all their requirements, as far as 
the question of soil goes. The most 
particular part of their culture is to see 
that abundance of water be given them 
Indeed, if the pots are well drained, and 
a compost like the one I have recom¬ 
mended is used, it will be very hard 
indeed to give too much water. If 
the plants are in a healthy and a 
flourishing condition, an occasional dose 
of liquid manure will prove of great 
service. Great care and discrimina¬ 
tion must, however, be exercised in 
its application, or evil results may 
ensue. 
G.flabella .—This is perhaps the most 
distinct, and certainly one of the most 
difficult members to deal with of the 
whole genus. It is rare indeed that one 
comes across a really well-grown 
specimen of it. Still it is a plant of 
noble appearance, and well deserves 
any extra trouble it may give. It is a 
native of Australia. 
G. dicarpa, also an Australian species, 
is easy enough to grow, and is altogether 
a charming plant. G. d. longipinnata 
has fronds considerably longer than are 
those of the type, which gives it an 
exceedingly graceful appearance. 
G. circinata and its variety G. c. 
Mendelii are plants that should find a 
welcome any and everywhere. They 
are both of very rapid growth, and no 
difficulty need be experienced in getting 
good specimens of them. 
All the foregoing species and varieties 
will succeed in the cool Fernery. A 
minimum winter temperature of 45S 
Fahr. by night, rising to 53^ by day will be 
amply sufficient. Staking is one of the most 
important operations in connection with their 
cultivation, for if this be neglected or badly per¬ 
formed the appearance of the plants will be in a great 
measure spoiled. The stakes used should be as 
neat and light as possible, no great strength being 
required.— Filices. 
PEAR REMINISCENCES. 
All who are concerned about the housing of our 
fruit, and specially of the large crops of Pears, must 
have their minds much occupied with them, their 
peculiarities, and their history ; and if any of your 
Pear growing readers who have passed the ninth 
Septennial of their lives, as the present writer has, I 
am quite sure they have many curious experiences 
which they could relate, if they were so minded, 
which would interest all those who care for their 
gardens with that love for them which the born 
gardener has to the very core of his being. For 
instance, in the gathering of my Pears I am annually 
reminded of the craze or fad which in the fifties ran 
through almost the whole of the fruit-growing world. 
The fad was the dwarfing, restricting, root-pruning, 
summer-pinching, pyramidal, or bush-growing of 
Apples, Pears, Plums, etc. 
The late Mr. Thomas Rivers, of Sawbridgeworth, 
was the great English apostle of the movement, and 
his articles, with other writers in the horticultural 
papers, his books, and his specimens of pyramids 
and bushes, by pictorial illustration, and plants 
from his nurseries, set the whole country aflame 
with a passion for fruit growing. Country gentlemen 
who had not hitherto shown much interest in Pear 
growing because all their knowiedge was in nine 
cases out of ten practically limited to a lot of old, 
gnarled, almost barren trees in the orchard of the 
Old Bergamot family, perhaps, the fruit of which 
was only fit for the pigs, for they were “ ripe at 
twelve o'clock and rotten at one,” and whose whole 
information about Pears was theoretically contained 
in the ancient couplet, " He who plants Pears, plants 
for his heirs,” were made to understand that all this 
was a thing of the past, and that all they need do 
was to plant their places with these pyramids or 
bushes, to restrict them root and branch according 
to the instructions given, and they would have fruit 
off their bushes of the newest foreign varieties of the 
largest size and most exquisite flavour in a year or 
two after planting. 
Papaver orientale. 
Nay, so forcibly was this remedy for unfruitfulness, 
root-pruning, preached, that these gentlemen were 
told that all their older trees could be brought into 
bearing by the adoption of this restrictive agency. I 
remember one good lady, the wife of a country 
gentleman, who had read herself full of it, ordering 
her gardener, an old gardener of the solid and con¬ 
servative spade and wheelbarrow sort, to his disgust, 
to set on and root prune every Pear tree on a long wall. 
The old man, a sturdy, bigoted, but thoroughly 
practical gardener, was a Yorkshireman, and on our 
going on with the operation, which the lady herself 
superintended, fumed and growled the whole time, 
often exclaiming “ Well, it’s first time i’ my life ’at I 
ever knowed that to mak’ a tree grow and fruit was 
to cut its roots off!” As the lady did not know the 
exact distance the operation should be done from the 
bole of the tree and the old man did not care, we 
root-pruned some of them that they never recovered ; 
much to the old man’s joy and sorrow ; joy that the 
experiment had failed, and sorrow at the loss of the 
trees he had tended for so many years, but also 
astonishment at the effect in produce which distin¬ 
guished those operated upon that survived that most 
trying ordeal. 
This root-pruning fad had its effect in another way. 
The Continental nurserymen soon took it up and 
worked it to their solid advantage, but to the sore 
crowding of many English fruit gardens with 
varieties bearing high-sounding names,and (on paper) 
the most extraordinary virtues of size, flavour, pro¬ 
ductiveness, etc. At that time these foreign nursery¬ 
men would come over into England and bring large 
consignments of Pear bushes chiefly with them and 
put up these collections by auction in various towns, 
showing to the buyers magnificent samples of Pears 
which these same bushes would produce. Many 
enthusiastic gentlemen were taken in by these sales, 
for, on proving their purchases, they turned out, the 
bulk of them, to be the veriest rubbish that ever 
was. There would be one or two varieties, perhaps, 
that would be of use, but generally they had to be 
re-grafted with well proved sorts. A gentleman 
farmer in the midland counties, whom I knew was a 
large buyer and planter, and on his showing the 
grand specimens which the trees would produce to 
his gardener, the gardener very shrewdly said, " It 
would be all right, sir, if you had bought the climate 
as well as the trees.” Every Pear grower knows 
that there was a good deal of sense in that observa¬ 
tion. 
I may give here another Pear reminiscence, not 
without its lesson to some of my 
brethren. The rector of the parish in 
which I lived, in the Midlands, was a 
gentleman of the old school. He was 
one of those clergymen whom the 
Saturday Review once styled "Squarsons,” 
meaning thereby the combination of 
the parson and the squire in one 
individual, a by no means unhappy 
combination, as many could testify. 
He was one of the most enthusiastic of 
Pear growers, and his gardener had 
caught his spirit. Their garden was to 
me one of the best schools I learnt 
in, and both rector and gardener were 
the wisest and kindest of teachers. 
They were both always glad to see 
garden Lovers, and especially Pear lovers, 
and as the passion was then growing 
on me I was a constant visitor. One 
crop of Pears interested me much; 
the crop was invariably good both in 
size, quantity and quality, and as they 
were growing in what, to me, seemed a 
curious fashion, I did not rest until 
I heard the story. The tree was 
Flemish Beauty, and was planted against 
a wall looking south-west by west. 
It grew healthy and strong, but did not 
fruit to their satisfaction, partly because 
the land was a deep and rich alluvial 
soil which filled the tree with sap, and 
partly because the corner of a planta¬ 
tion just came up to opposite this 
tree, shutting off the light. Proper and 
timely training was given to it until it 
got to the top of the wall, then it 
seemed as if it was going to indulge itself 
and sow its wild oats, for it produced 
a lot of whip-like shoots at the top of 
the stem of unusual length and stoutness, to the 
great distress of the rector and his gardener. Being 
men of resource they decided to try and tame the 
tree by bringing these whip branches over the top of 
the wall and spreading them out in the form of an 
inverted fan. This was apparently the check it 
needed, for year by year these shoots extended, were 
duly nailed in, spurs began to form, and fruit appear, 
and when I saw it, it was a very unusual thing indeed 
for it to miss growing each year a crop of Pears of 
the best size and quality. 
As the branches grew and flourished on the south¬ 
east side of the wall, so the branches on the south¬ 
west deteriorated, and were by degrees cut away up 
to the bole of the tree, so that the tree was growing 
on one side of the garden wall and its crop of fruit 
on the other. The lesson in this lies in the check 
to the tree by bending over the branches, thus 
diverting the sap from its purely upward movement 
into a slower more roundabout way, therefore giving 
time for fruit spurs to form, and, being on the 
sunnier side of the wall, those spurs were better 
ripened, hence the fruitfulness. Every gardener 
knows that once fruit bearing is set up in a tree, it 
goes on so, the production of fruit absorbing all its 
powers. I must not extend this old time chat about 
Pears, or the Editor will waste-paper basket it as 
garrulous idle talk, not fit for this matter of fact 
fin de sieclt period.— X. 
