ritie, and take the fittest season for the gathering of his fruit:
as thus for example. If because you are vnexperienced or vnacquainted
with the fruit you doe not know the due time of his ripening, you shall
obserue the colour of the Peare, and if you see it doe alter, either in
part, or in all, you shall be assured the fruit is neare ripening, for
Peares doe neuer change their colours, but when they doe desire to be
taken from the tree: and of all fruit the Peare may be gathered the
hardest, because both his owne naturall heate and peculiar quallittie
will ripen him best with lying: yet to be more strongly fortefied in the
knowledge of the ripenesse of your fruit, and because it is better to
get a day too late, then an hower to earely, you shall before you gather
your Peares, whether they be Summer fruit or Winter fruit, or whether
you meane to spend them soone or preserue them long, take one of them
from the tree, which is neither the ripest nor the greenest, but betwixt
both, and cut it through the midst with your knife, not longwise, but
ouerthwart, and then looke into the coare where the kirnells lye, and if
it be hollow so as the kirnells lye as it were hollow therein, the
neather ends thereof being turned either blacke, or blackish, albeit the
complexion of the Peare be little, or not at all altered, yet the Peares
haue their full growth, and may very well be gathered: then laying them
either vpon a bedde of ferne, or straw, one vpon another, in great
thicknesse, their owne naturall heate will in short space ripen them,
which you shall perceiue both by the speedy changing of their colour, &
the strength of their smell, which will be exceeding suffocating, which
as soone as you perceiue, you shall then spread them thinner and
thinner, vntill they be all ripe, and then lay them one by one, in such
sort as they may not touch one another, and then they will last much the
longer, you shall also after they be ripe, neither suffer them to haue
straw nor ferne vnder them, but lay them either vpon some smooth table,
boards or fleakes of wands, and they will last the longer.

{SN: Of transporting, or carrying of Peares farre.}
If you be to carry or transport Peares farre, you shall then gather them
so much the sooner, and not suffer any ripe one to be amongst them, and
then lyning great wicker baskets (such as will hould at least quarters a
peece) finely within with white-straw, fill them vp with Peares, and
then couer the