STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. I47 



on the trees through the season? This is the great question in pear 

 culture. Any man wiio can answer it for himself in his own soil, 

 can for himself solve what has proven the most expensive problem in 

 Horticulture. But i feel sure that there can be no universal rules 

 "•iven. it is a question of soils, and climates, and varieties, and ot 

 native vigor of trees. I ha\e seen in the valley of the Illinois Kiver, 

 Flemish Beauty trees some twenty-five years old, standing on a ridge 

 of sand of great depth — standing in grass kept short, and said never 

 to have had manure or cultivation — which answered to my ideal of a 

 perfect tree in wood, leaves, and fruit. But in one instance only have 

 I ever seen Flemish Beauty trees hold their foliage and ripen their 

 fruit perfectly on the hills of Southern Illinois, whatever the treatment 

 given. And I recall several dozen very noble and healthy Tysons some 

 fifteen years old, and loaded with fruit, which were standing in a heavy, 

 fiat, retentive clay soil in Southern Ohio — seeded to clover; but simi- 

 lar treatment of the Tyson in lighter and better soils in Egypt fails 

 to hold tlie leaves. And I noted, in that Siune stiff' Ohio soil, some great 

 Bartletts, models of beauty, health, and fruitfulness, growing in a chicken 

 and hog-yard, and so subject to the most stimulating of manures. Any 

 gentleman who has so cultivated in Illinois will please tell us how long 

 his ti"ets lasted. 



The able editor of the Gardener'' s Monthly has repeatedly advocated 

 the keeping of pear trees in a close grass sod, and has received much 

 severe, not to say mean, criticism therefor. But while I believe that, tliis 

 method can not bu adopted witliout due regard to local circumstances, yet 

 1 am quite clear that it is a far safer general recommendation to make, 

 than the system of generous culture commonly accepted as orthodox; and 

 I believe that the more carefully we study pear trees over any large extent 

 of country, the less we shall abuse Mr. Meehan. The fact that most of 

 the old pear trees in the West are standing, or have generally been kept 

 in grass, is worthy of regard. And the observation that we have all, I 

 think, often made in visiting pear orchards, that the few trees standing on 

 the lawn, or in some neglected corner with unstirred soil, have escaped 

 blight, while the ranks of the cultivated orchard have been sadly thinned 

 thereby, is full of suggestions unfavorable to the commonly received 

 theory. 



The system of root-pruning, as so often presented by our earnest and 

 eminent co-laborer. Dr. Hull, has received all the investigation it has been 

 possible for your committee to make, and with conclusions in some cases 

 exceedingly favorable. It is much to be regretted that this experiment 

 lias been made by so few men in so few soils. All of us who have 

 repeatedly visited Dr. Hull's orchard, know that his ti"ees and fruit fully 

 sustain the claims of his theory, for his own locality. The root-pruned 

 trees grow very little, hokl their foliage \\ ell, do not bliglit, and bear 

 abundant crops of highly-colored and well flavored fruit. I can also re- 

 port that an (jrchard of liis, six years old, on the same soil, which had not 

 been root-pruned, commenced to blight last year, and badly this year by 

 the 20th of May. They were root-pruned soon after and the blight 



