INDIANA IIORTICUI.TURAL SOCIKTY. 519 



a buslu'l it would be (lio snino. Teople do not buy pe.ars iu the quantities 

 that tbey buy other fruit. Now, is not that the fact, tliat you can hardly 

 ever sell one family more than two busliels of pears? What would the 

 poor grower do if the whole body of trees bore? People will only eat so 

 many pears, and you can not get them to go beyond that. 



Dr. Wolfe: So you thinlc the blight is a good thing, then? 



Mr. I'.urton: Yes, for pears. If there Avasu't the blight you could not 

 make anything out of them. 



Dr. Wolfe: I feel satistied that the spirit spoken of by my friend 

 from Illinois, tlie selfishness of the fruit-grower, is often at the bottom of 

 his ti-oubles. Who could take care of from two to ten thousand pear trees 

 when such a disease is prevalent? We doctors know that isolation and 

 separation would be absolutely necessary in such a state of disease in the 

 hunian family. Now. I have a little bit of experience. I was never selfish 

 on pears; ne\er had but a few trees of several varieties, among which 

 was an Idaho, which, I suppose, was about the most susceptible to the 

 blight of any. It was on my Georgetown farm that this took the blight. 

 There were some Keiffers and other varieties in the same row— only one 

 nnv. for family use— and at the first appearance of the blight on these 

 frees I gave them a severe pruning. I did not soil my instrument going 

 through a diseased limb, but cut away from it. I cut severely. I was out 

 there last month and looked at that row of pear trees, and they were all 

 right and doing well, and I think it is due to the fact that they were 

 pruned severely and were scattered. I watched them closely and was 

 able to take care of them. Now. on the farm I have here I have one that 

 is an Idaho out there, and it took the blight last year and was blighted 

 severely, and I cut it all to pieces. I didn't leave much if any of the top, 

 and I was out there looking at that the other day. and it was putting out 

 fine new shoots and looking first rate. May it not be that you coddle them 

 too much and keep them too close together? Do you suppose a doctor 

 could cure smjillpox if he held his patients together? Now. this is a con- 

 tagious disease. Do not be so selfish with your trees, and I am sure you 

 will always have as many pears as Brother Burton wants— two bushels 

 to the family. 



Chairman I.atta: And now we pass to the third division of this topic, 

 which is the "Stone Fruits." This is to be treated by Mr. .1. G. Scott, of 

 Borden. Clark County. 



Mr. .1. G. Scott thereupon read his paper to the Convention, as follows; 



