342 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



throughout the North Temperate Zone, where the soil was com- 



Eetent for its growth. The pear tree has a tendency to assume a 

 eautiful pyramidal form. It is said that the pear tree requires 

 more time before fruiting than the apple tree, but modern po- 

 mologists have greatly accelerated the fruiting of pears. 



In Europe pear trees are said to have survived centuries. The 

 tree may be multiplied indefinitely by layers, cuttings, budding 

 and skillfully grafting on its own stock, which is now common 

 and usually very successful. The pear tree is a very symmet- 

 rical grower, and as a standard will assume its own beautiful 

 and natural figure in opposition to any amount of restraint, except 

 the distorted expalier. To give the pear tree a shape that the 

 owner may be proud of there should be no clashing or crossing of 

 limbs, for the straight and symmetrical shoots display the fruit 

 more strikingly to the eye when the maturing stage of ripeness is 

 going on. Meantime when a decayed limb is discovered the 

 owner should at once remove the unsightly member for the con- 

 tinual health of the tree. This method should obtain in refer- 

 ence to any fruit tree, for they are a burden to the growing tree. 



Our progenitors required the whole of their long lives, to eat of 

 the fruit of the tree they planted. But by the modern arboricul- 

 ture the youth may pluck the fruit of the tree he planted when a 

 child. 



There has been a great and beneficient revolution in a half 

 century in the culture of the pear tree in the methods which have 

 hastened its fruiting, for modern culture has shortened the space 

 of time more than four-fifths. The methods of the propagation 

 of the pear on account of its early fruiting has been a gratifica- 

 tion to all fruit growers. Mr. Perkins, of Boston, was the first 

 who produced the pear by grafting on the quince — the scion 

 being of pear stock. Marshall P. Wilder, of Boston, and Mr. 

 Manning, of Salem, and Mr. Hovey, of Cambridge, commenced 

 the cultivation of quince-rooted pear trees, which may have been 

 seen forty years of age. Pear culturists, indeed, have learned, 

 that the office of the quince is entirely as of root, and not a& 

 trunk. It is thought, moreover, by eminent pomologists, that we 

 shall arrive at a point of superiority in the propagation of the 

 pear, which will enable nurserymen to wholly dispense with the 

 quince, root and branch. 



The Huguenots bore a prominent part in the introduction and 

 propagation of pears in our country. In preparing for their exile 

 doubtless they selected seeds of their notable varieties and 

 planted them around their homes in a free country, on Long 

 Island, New Kochelle, Michigan and in Illinois. 



There are many points which are little understood, although 

 discussed for a long time by men of talent and close observation. 

 Among these are the decline of certain highly esteemed varieties 

 which cannot longer be grown in localities where they formerly 



