eighty varieties, of which the pear alone constitutes more than onethird. In China, Hindostan, and the southern parts of Germany, the pear is extensively cultivated as a prominent article of food.

The pear is decidedly one of the most useful fruits in cultivation; its characteristics, of hardness of the 'tree, beauty of its flowers, and wholesomeness of its fruit, whether prepared in preserves, taken immediately from the garden, or the fruit room, certainly must be considered as one of the choicest gifts of nature. In many parts of the Eastern continent, where this fruit is so extensively cultivated, it forms one of the principal articles of diet, not only for man, but for keeping and fattening of cattle.

Medical Properties and Uses. The seeds of the pear are very much esteemed in some parts of Europe and China, in the treatment of fevers; they are considered cooling, and are found to possess considerable astringent, and tonic properties. Culpeper speaks very highly of the leaves of this tree-to be used fresh, after being bruised, as an excellent remedy for wounds, bruises, swellings, stoppage of blood, and reducing inflamation. The fruit, as an article of food, and the flowers for beauty, are the chief peculiarities of this tree, the wood being almost as hard as that of box, for which it is even substituted by wood engravers.