Several plants of the Verbena triphylla are growing at Salcombe in the open ground, and are now six feet high. I have not tried any of them myself, but as I expect to be more at home in future, than for some years past, I shall not fail to add this plant to those tender shrubs already growing around me.

Oranges and Lemons, trained as Peach Trees against walls, and sheltered only with mats of straw during the winter, have been seen in a few gardens of the south of Devonshire for these hundred years. The fruit is as large and fine as any from Portugal; some Lemons from a garden near this place, were, about thirty-five or forty years ago, presented to the King by the late Earl PoULETT, from his sister Lady BRIDGET BASTARD, of Gerston; and there are trees still in the neighbourhood, the planting of which I believe is beyond memory. The late Mr. POLLEXFEN BASTARD, who had the greatest number of Oranges and Lemons of any one in this country, remarked above thirty years since (what tends to confirm your experiments), that he found stocks raised from seed and grafted in his own garden, bore the cold better than Oranges and Lemons imported.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your very obedient servant,

Alston, near Kingsbridge, Devon,

December 11, 1809.

ARRAHAM HAWKINS.

XXXIII. On a new Variety of Pear. By THOMAS ANDREW KNIGHT, Esq. F. R. S. &c.

Read January 2, 1810.

HAD the Pear been recently introduced into England from

a climate similar to that of the South of France, in which it had been found to ripen in the months of August and September, and to become fit for the desert in the four succeeding months, it might have been inferred, with little apparent danger of error, that the same fruit would ripen here in October, and be fit for our tables during winter; provided its blossoms proved sufficiently hardy to set in our climate. But had many varieties of this fruit been proved by subsequent experience to be capable of acquiring maturity before the conclusion of our summer, and in the early part of the autumn, without the aid of a wall, scarcely any doubts could have been entertained of the facility of obtaining numerous varieties, which would ripen well on standard trees to supply our tables during winter: for it would be very extraordinary if the whole of our summer, and of our long, and generally warm autumn, would not affect that, which a part of our summer alone, had been proved to be capable of effecting; nevertheless, though varieties of the Pear abound, which bear and ripen well in the early part of the autumn, we possess scarcely any good winter Pears, which do not require an east or west wall, in the warmer parts of England,

and a south wall in the colder parts. This can arise only from the want of varieties, and I venture most confidently to predict, that (if proper experiments be made to form such varieties) winter Pears of equal merits with those which now grow on our best walls, will be obtained in the utmost abundance from standard trees; and that such Pears may be sold, with sufficient profit to the grower, on as low terms as Apples are now sold, during winter: for I have had several opportunities of observing that the fruit of seedling Pear trees generally bears a considerable resemblance to that of their parent trees, and the experiments I have made on other species of fruits, induce me to believe that a good copy of almost any variety may be obtained; and as I have more than once succeeded in combining the hardiness and vigour of the Siberian Crab, with the richness of the Golden Pippin, I do not doubt of the practicability of combining the hardiness of the Swan's Egg Pear, with all the valuable qualities of the Colmar, or Bezi de Chaumontel: and I consider the climate of England as peculiarly well calculated for the necessary experiments*.

I am disposed to annex some degree of importance to the production of abundant crops of fruit, to supply our markets, at a moderate price during the winter and spring; for it has been often observed, that great manufacturing towns have generally been more healthy in seasons, when fruits have abounded, than in others; and the same palate which is accustomed to, and pleased with sweet fruits, is rarely found to be pleased with spirits, or strong fermented liquors:

*See Horticultural Transactions, page 30.

and therefore, as feeble causes, which are constantly operating, ultimately produce very extensive effects on the habits of mankind, I am inclined to hope, and to believe, that markets abundantly supplied, at all seasons, with fruits, would have a tendency to operate favourably, both on the physical and moral health of our people.

Under these considerations, I have amused myself with attempts to form new varieties of winter Pears; and though my experiments are yet in their infancy, and I have seen the result of one only, and that under very unfavourable circumstances, I am induced to state the progress that I have made, to the Horticultural Society, in the hope that others will join me in the same pursuit.

In the spring of the year 1797, I extracted the stamina from the blossoms of a young and vigorous tree of the Autumn Bergamot Pear, which grew in a very rich soil, and I introduced, at the proper subsequent period, the pollen of the St. Germain Pear, and from this experiment I obtained several fruits with ripe seeds. I, however, succeeded in raising only two plants, one of these was feeble and dwarfish in its growth, as well as wild and thorny in its appearance, and I did not think it worth preserving. The other presented a much more favourable character, and I fancied that I could discover in it some traces of the features of its male parent. This plant afforded blossoms in the spring of 1808, but I had very unfortunately removed it from the seed-bed, when it was fourteen feet high, in the preceding winter, and as it had never been previously transplanted, it had retained but very few roots. Two of the blossoms, nevertheless, afforded fruit; which began to grow with rapidity as soon as the tree

had emitted new roots, but this was not till late in the summer, and on the 8th of October, the fruit was blown from the tree by a violent storm. The two Pears were then very nearly of the same weight and size, each being somewhat more that eight inches in circumference, and in form, almost perfectly spherical. Though bruised by their fall the Pears remained sound till the beginning of December, when they became sweet and melting, though not at all highly flavoured : their flavour was, however, better than I expected, for they were blown from the tree long before they would have ceased to grow larger, if the state of the weather would have permitted; and the autumn of 1808 was so excessively wet, that some St. Germain Pears, which grew on a south wall in the same garden, were wholly without richness or flavour.

The new Pear very much resembled the St. Germain in the form of the eye and stalk, and the almost perfectly spherical shape is that which might have been anticipated from the forms of its parents. It will probably acquire a very large size under favourable circumstances; but removing from my late residence at Elton, I have been under the necessity of again transplanting the tree, and therefore I cannot expect to see its fruit in any degree of perfection till the year 1811. I have subsequently attempted to form other new varieties, by introducing the pollen of the Beurrée, the Crassane, and St. Germain Pears, into the prepared blossoms of the Autumn Bergamot, the Swan's Egg, and Aston Town Pears; but I have nor yet seen the result of the experiments. The leaves and habits of some of the young plants afford, however, very favourable indications of the future produce.