ILLINOIS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 317 



amply paid for themselves and the others too, can be removed. If pears are worth prowinpasa 

 market crop la preference to other fruit, In a given locality, then I know of no otlier fruit, or crop 

 to grow in tlie orcliard, so profitable or convenient as pears. 



Trees such as I have described, planted in a soil such as I have indicated, should therefore l)e 

 treated as mucli on natural and as little on artiticial principles as possible. Nature does not cultivate 

 by a constant stirring of tlie soil, but mulches. Nature plants closely, and gives sluide in Bumnier 

 and shelter In winter. Nature prunes sparingly, and not by a systematic shortening or cutting back. 

 Nature grows grass and weeds and small Ijrusli, to protect her young orchards from all extremes. 

 Can we grow orchards in this way? That is a ditticult (juestion to answer, with our present amount of 

 careful experiments and observations. Tliere are scattered instances of complete success in grow- 

 ing pear trees in tliis way; but I know no one who has attempted to follow nature closely, and on a 

 large scale. Not but that plenty of trees have been planted in a poor way, in soil poorly adapted to 

 their growth, and tlien left to tlieir own fate. There Is an abundance of neglect everywhere— but tliis 

 is not Nature's way. Nature is particular as to soil and climate. Slie grows her oaks, her pines, her 

 beeches and her poplars in locations specially adapted to tlieir several wants. Man has not copied 

 her well in this respect. Nature plants the seed where the tree is to grow. Man has not followed 

 her in this particidar. It is my impression that lier success is far tlie most triumphant, and that her 

 methods are worthy our attention, study, and a mucli closer imitation. 



Tlie artificial system of culture produces everywhere abnormal results. It gives great growth of 

 wood, but great tenderness. It gives premature fruitfulness, and fruits extravagantly large, and 

 "fit for exhibition," but painfully rare. It brings troops of diseases and early death. The agricul- 

 tural press of the country Is full of a murmur of wailing over the results of this system, and yet the 

 few bold men who have dared advise a radical change in our methods of managing trees, get little 

 gratitude and much abuse. For myself, I am unsettled in opinion as to many of these points. I 

 know this: that I have no knowledge of any pear orchard that has endured the systematic pruning, 

 manuring and cultivation recomnieiuled in the books, for a very long term of years; while I do know 

 of many scattered trees which have yielded their annual abundant harvest for a half century of time, 

 and still stand in green and venerable beauty, monuments of something better than the orthodox 

 system of tree management. I do not commit myself to anything beyond this: that the comparative 

 results of Nature's method and man's method are worth our pondering. I do not say that orchards 

 should be seeded to grass, for that is a (piestiou ot soil and circumstances. Especially, I do not say 

 that they should be left to the protection of weeds, for there is a better way. Hut it should not be 

 forgotten that Nature abhors the nakedness of the ground, and hastens to clothe every plowed field 

 with lier mantle of greenness. I only recommend that we try all these ways, and hold fast to that 

 which gives us the most good pears for the greatest number of years. 



Somelhiiig should be said about "Insects and Diseases" in every well regulated horticultural talk, 

 and, heretic as I am, I will in this respect follow the ritual of our societies. The two Insects which 

 <lamage us most at present, and which threaten the future of "pear growing for profit" the most 

 alarmingly, arc the curculio and codling moth. The larv;c of the curculio do not often, If ever, 

 mature in the pear, but in neighborhoods where they abound tliey disfigure the young pears sadly. 

 With orchards of peaches and pears side by side, I have found the latter much the most numerously 

 stung early in the season, while the infant fruits were about the size of peas. The effects of these 

 punctures are not outgrown by most varieties; the development of the fruit Is arrested at the point 

 of Injury, or goes on slowly, forming a woody texture, and this scarred knotty fruit Is not worth ' 

 half in-ice in the fall. 



You are all familiar with the work of the codling moth In the apple, and I need say nothing con- 

 cerning this insect, only that it is ijuite as hard on the pears as the apples, and so damaging to both 

 that a dozen years more of neglect of measures for its extermination promises to leave our pear and 

 apple orchards as barren of eatable fruits as are those of many sections of New England and New 

 Jersey, whose proprietors enjoy their abundant supply of these necessities of the table— when they 

 buy them. 



Among diseases afiecting pear trees I think there Is none so damaging as leaf blight— by which I do 

 not mean the sudden blackening of the leaves which we so often see on pear seedlings, but that fall 

 of the leaves in summer wliich is caused by a slower growing fungus, and sometimes apparently by a 

 premature ripening of the leaves not connected with fungoid disease. This disease affects most 

 varieties in my neighborhood, where the ground is cultivated In the common way. There are a few 

 of our best kinds (juite exempt, however, under the most trying circumstances. This fungus attacks 

 only those leaves having a deficient or weakened vitality. Our pear orchards generally stand in a 

 soil which Is systematically kept naked during the entire year, and exposed as much as possible to 

 all the severe changes of temperature. Such a soil becomes intensely hot every bright day In sum- 

 mer, and radiates heat rapidly at niglit— a condition of things precisely contrary to all the reiiuire- 

 ments of physiology and the teachings of nature. Most of our pear trees can't stand it. The debili- 

 tated leaves, whlcli are constantly exposed to the spores of this fungus, become unable to resist it. 

 This is pretty much all theory, of course: but I know tliat those trees, of varieties most liable to 



