November  15,  1900. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER 
lady  of  the  house,  are  gathered  in  sections,  and  so  ripened  by  degrees, 
and  their  season  prolonged  to  the  latest  they  will  keep,  though,  as  we 
all  know,  they  are  of  all  Pears  the  chief  of  those  which  are  “ripe  at 
twelve  o’clock  and  rotten  at  one.”  Our  next  are  Beurre  d’Amanlis,  also 
gathered  in  sections  to  prolong  their  use;  these  get  associated  with 
D  )yenne  Boussochi  and  a  few  Windsors.  Comte  de  Lamy,  Souvenir  du 
Congres,  and  Louise  Bonne  de  Jersey  ;  followed  in  their  ripening — not 
always  in  the  same  order  and  succession  year  by  year,  as  every 
gardener  finds  out  by  experience — by  Pondante  d’Automne,  Marie 
Louise,  Pitmaston  Duchess,  Marechal  de  la  Cour,  Pondante  de 
Charnenses  fa  splendid  Pear,  and  a  very  slow  ripener),  Autumn 
Nelis,  Beurre  Superfin,  Marie  Louise  d’Uccle,  Epine  du  Mas.  Emile 
d’Heyst,  Doyenne  du  Comice,  Beurre  Bose,  Easter  Beurre  (a  sad 
445 
Conference,  and  I  cannot  say  that  I  am  taken  with  it.  It  is  so  long 
and  thin  that  it  will  be  all  skin  and  core,  I  am  afraid,  on  eating  it,  and 
if  the  flavour  is  not  up  to  the  mark  it  will  be  no  gain  to  any  collection. 
I  shall  watch  it  closely. 
Speaking  of  “  Quality  in  Emit,”  H.  R.  Richards  (writing  page  383) 
does  not  think  that  the  fruit  of  the  present  season  shines  in  quality. 
Neither  do  I.  I  do  not  think  I  have  tasted  any  Pear  as  yet  up  to  its  best 
flavour,  except  some  Louise  Bonne  de  Jersey,  off  large  bushes  or  orchard- 
grown  trees,  and  therefore  rather  small,  that  has  satisfied  me  in  this 
respect.  What  he  hints  at  in  his  closing  paragraph  is  quite  true — too 
true — that  raisers  and  planters  do  not  consider  high  qnality  enough  in 
their  respective  operations.  Size,  of  late  years,  has  been  worshipped  too 
much  unfortunately,  and  quality  has  had  to  take  a  back  seat. — N.  H.  P. 
Pm.  119.— PEAR  SOUVENIR  DU  CONGRES. 
misnomer,  as  mine  are  usually  in  use  about  Christmas),  Winter  Nelis, 
Beurre  Bachelier,  Glou  Mor^eau,  Nec  Plus  Meuris,  Bergamotte  d’Esperen, 
and  Josephine  de  Malines,  which  last  is  about  my  latest. 
We  are  great  consumers  of  stewing  Pears,  and  we  use  in  this  way 
Catillac,  Beurre  Diel,  Vicar  of  Winkfield  (this  has  given  me  at  times  a 
few  dishes  of  very  acceptable  fruit  for  the  table),  Triomphe  de 
Jodoigne,  General  Todleben,  Beurre  Clairgeau  (a  lazy  bearer),  Uvedale’s 
St.  Germains,  Venilam,  and  Beurre  Brettoneau. 
There  are  a  few  Pears  here — some  of  them  a  legacy  of  the  past,  as 
the  old  Bergamots,  Beurre  Hardy  (the  laziest  bearer  I  believe  that  I 
know),  and  Pius  IX. — useless  except  for  stewing,  and  not  of  size  good 
enough  for  that;  Hessle,  wonderfully  productive,  but  that  is  all,  and 
they  go  to  the  market  straight  off.  The  same  with  Pertility,  its  name 
being  the  only  good  quality  it  possesses — at  least,  that  I  have 
discovered.  Beurre  Capiaumont  goes  to  market  with  the  Hessle  and 
Pertility,  and  Brown  Beurre  joins  hands  as  to  bearing  with  Beurre 
Hardy.  The  last  and  newest,  and  at  present  untried  on  the  table,  is 
Pear  Souvenir  du  Congres. 
The  Pear  tree  Souvenir  du  Congres,  of  which  I  send  a  photograph, 
was  planted  in  the  autumn  of  1884.  It  is  trained  to  a  wall  facing  east, 
and  it  seldom  fails  to  bear  a  good  crop  of  fair  size  fruit.  This  season 
it  has  carried  620  fruits,  the  total  weight  being  376  lbs.  The  wall  is 
9  feet  high,  and  the  tree  spreads  a  distance  of  14  feet.  Every  year  as 
soon  as  the  fruit  is  set  I  give  the  tree  2  ozs.  of  nitrate  of  soda  per 
square  yard,  and  several  times  during  the  summer  a  good  soaking  of 
liquid  manure  from  the  stable.  I  might  say  that  the  Pear  crop  generally 
about  this  part  is  very  heavy  this  season. — G.  Lock,  Gardener  to 
B.  II.  Hill,  Esq.f  Nexvcombee,  Crediton. 
[We  reproduce  the  photograph  forwarded  by  Mr.  Look,  as  it  will 
certainly  be  of  interest  to  many  readers  of  the  Journal  of  Horticulture. 
Perhaps  it  will  convince  some  of  those  pessimistic  persons  who  were 
complaining  in  these  pages  a  year  or  two  back  of  the  decadence  of 
gardening  in  general,  and  wall  fruit  in  particular,  that  good  trees  may 
still  be  found  in  English  gardens  if  we  take  the  trouble  to  look  for  them 
