Mr. Editor: You called my attention to the notice of Rivers' catalogue contained in the Gardener's Chronicle, Mr. Rivers is a very experienced pomolo-gist, and his information is indeed useful, the more so, because also practical. The method of transplanting trees, to bring them into bearing, where recommended by me to my friends, never met with their approval; therefore, I never mentioned it in print; but I beg to avail myself of the remark of Mr. Rivers, to say a few words about it.

In England and Belgium, where the climate is usually damp, and the soil nearly always wet throughout the entire spring, there is no danger in transplanting a thrifty young tree, if the process be done with care; as, for instance, the new hole ready made, and the tree transferred to it with a clump of earth, having most of its roots safe, and then planted with the usual care we bestow upon that delicate process. In this dry and absorbing atmosphere, still more caution is needed, and success is not so certain. But I can show by experience that a tree, chiefly on the quince root, taken up in some part of your grounds, and carefully transferred by wheelbarrow, or handbarrow, to its new place, when the operation is performed on a mild spring day, and the soil being in good order, is in no danger whatever, and that this is, indeed, the best of all methods to throw a very thrifty variety into bearing. With pears upon quince root, one transplanting in two years will have the desired effect, almost always the first, and certainly after the second removal. But in no cases should the tree be transferred to a great distance, and the dirt all shaken out.

It requires patience to take up the tree, so as to leave part of the earth, at least in the centre of the root's cluster, and the roots uninjured, excepting at their extremities, where the knife must clean the broken or smashed parts by a neat diagonal cut. If the tree was, previously to the operation, at a proper depth, it should not be planted any deeper; and the filing earth should be mellow and clean, so as to fill easily all interstices. By means of such precautions, I never lost a tree, and have brought many too luxuriant growing varieties, into bearing. It is safer than pinching, as it keeps the tree in better shape, and at once disposes the slow fruit branches to mature their incipient buds, which, in some varieties, require three years to become actual blossoms.

To the removal "at the end of October," I should have no objection, if the holes have been prepared beforehand, and a mould of mellow earth kept ready on the side of the hole. But, with our severe winters (which is not the case in Great Britain), I always prefer the spring. The operation succeeds as well, and there is no danger from deep freezing, too much moisture, or other drawbacks of no consequence to established trees, but sometimes very injurious to removed trees.

A word about his description of pears. He is right in presuming that Duc d'Orleans is the same as Conseille de la cour; which is the same as Marechal de la court how all these mistakes occurred, it would be hard to explain; most of them are the result of the slovenliness and neglect of Ferdinand de Meester, an old invalid, and by no means a temperance man. By his carelessness and inattention, labels have been lost, changed, and transferred to other trees; after Van Mons' death, desirous to please his heirs, he presented them with many new varieties, which he knew to be already named. When Mr. A. Bivort came in possession of Van Mons' seedlings, many trees, among the thousands, had no label nor designation whatever; and being naturally induced to think that these unlabelled trees were inedited, he gave names of his own to them, as he had a perfect right to do, not knowing that such trees had already been named once, and, as in the case with the Duc d'Orleans, twice by others. However, under his careful and skilful management, such mistakes will occur no more.

We should undoubtedly have been made acquainted with some new valuable and inedited fruits had its model pear-school not been twice visited by terrible hail-storms in the course of the last two years, which cut down almost every fruit from the promising seedlings.

Prince Albert is evidently of the Passe Colmar group, or family, and will, perhaps, not suit our climate, as the offsprings of that group are nearly all inferior to the European standard; so are Alexandre Lambre, Fondante de Noel, Ac., at least as far as tested here. The Colmar and the Passe Colmar themselves, the heads of the family, never do come up to their European value. But Prince Albert is indeed such a fine pyramidal grower, as to be entitled to a fair trial before being discarded.

Let our trees grow older, more mature, and we shall undoubtedly obtain better and more steady fruit.