158 TEANSACTIOlsrS OF THE ILLINOIS 



others . And the space allotted to this essay cannot be better occupied than in a detail 

 of my own experience with the few kinds I have grown. My trees are from seven to 

 ten years planted, partly on pear, but mostly on quince roots. Of the latter, many 

 have partially established themselves on their own roots . 



VARIETIES. 



Madeleine (Standards)— Bore fruit at eight years from planting, of good size and 

 excellent quality, ripe on the 4th of July. The next year the best trees died of the 

 blight, and the other was saved only by prompt pruning The wood of this variety is 

 peculiarly soft and sappy, rendering it too susceptible to the attack of blight. 



Bloodgood.— Trees (standards) now ten years old, vigorous, handsome and healthy, 

 retaining the foliage until frost. They yielded their first crop, a very fair one in quan- 

 tity and of excellent quality, the past season; ripe July 11th. 



Julienne.— Trees (standards) ten years old; bore their first fruit in 1867; trees healthy 

 and moderately vigorous; fruit of fair size, handsome shape and color, insipid in 1867, 

 but of very fair quality the past season. Ripe about the 1st of August. 



Buerre Giffard.— This is one of the very best of the early pears, as well as one of 

 the most beautiful, but the tree is a feeble grower, and during the past season failed to 

 retain its foliage. Ripens about the 1st of August. 



Rostizer. — Trees ten years old; have borne no fruit. 



Bartlett.— This variety stands at the head of the list for profit. The trees grow 

 rapidly and bear early, and continue to grow and bear. I have seen thrifty, vigorous 

 trees produce a dozen fine pears each the fourth year from the seed. This variety is 

 set down in the books as very liable to blight, but with me it has proved one of the 

 healthiest. I have never lost a tree of it by blight or any other disease, or had one 

 seriously affected. Of the fruit it is unnecessary to speak. Ripens from August 10th 

 to 30th. 



Flemish Beauty.— This variety is very productive after the trees have reached the 

 age of ten or twelve years , and the fruit is vei-y large and handsome, but the tree is 

 liable to blight, and also to premature loss of leaves . Ripening about the same time as 

 the Bartlett, and inferior to it in most respects, I consider it an unprofitable sort. 



Belle Lucrative.— This delicious pear would be more worthy of cultivation if it did 

 not, like the Flemish Beauty, come in competition with the Bartlett, to which it is 

 greatly inferior in size and appearance, especially in color. The trees are reasonably 

 healthy , very productive, and come into bearing early . 



White Doyenne, or Virgalieu.— Trees on quince roots, planted in the spring of 1862. 

 They began to bear the fourth year afterward, and have produced full or partial crops 

 every year since. Both the trees and the fruit have been ^healthy. That peculiar 

 cracking of the fruit of this variety which has rendered it valueless in New York and 

 other localities has not, as yet, appeared in my orchard, except in an occasional speci- 

 men. This ought to be a profitable sort in my locality, but coming in competition 

 with Bartletts, grown a little further north, and being small as compared with that fine 

 fruit, it fails to bring the prices its high quality ought to command— another proof 

 that modest merit does not always receive its just reward. 



Gray Doyenne.— This is fully equal to the preceding variety in quality, rather 

 larger. It is entirely covered with a coat of orange -colored russett, giving a very 



