FRUITS. 153 



except to shape and keep them well balanced. Some varie- 

 ties, as the Urhaniste, will natm^ally grow in a regular pyra- 

 midal shape, while others, like Rostiezer, will need consid- 

 erable heacling-in to make them compact. 



The pear, like all other trees, is subject to diseases, per- 

 haps the worst of which are "leaf-blight" and "frozen-sap 

 blight." It is a serious fault in a tree or variety to loose its 

 leaves in summer or early fall, while one which has healthy 

 and persistent leaves is to be preferred. The curculio and 

 other insects sometimes attack pears, but the injury is not 

 often serious. We should encourage the small birds in every 

 possible way as the best protection from insects. The canker- 

 worm, the borer, the tent caterpillar and the codlin moth, 

 which are so destructive to the apple-crop, have not as yet 

 troubled the pear; though the "web-worm," or fall caterpillar, 

 shows a decided preference for the pear and should always 

 be destroyed. 



Of the ^rq^^ of pears there can be no doiibt. But perhaps 

 some will say if they are generally planted and cared for as 

 we have described, it will not " pay " ; they will become a drug 

 in the market. Having carefully watched the market for the 

 last ten years, we are free to say that the price of good mer- 

 chantal)le fruit has constantly advanced. Sometimes early 

 August pears have been a drug, and have been sold at low 

 prices, as have also the first-gathered of that most plentiful of 

 all pears, — the Bartlett ; but this has been owing to having 

 " windfalls " and immature fruit forced upon the market, and 

 that, too, in the height of the peach-season. What wonder is 

 it that people should prefer peaches to half-grown, flavorless 

 peai's? Those who have thinned out their fruit and left it 

 upon the trees till fully grown towards the last of the season, 

 have obtained good prices. Well-grown Bartlett pears readily 

 sold at four dollars per bushel in any of the cities of this county 

 for the last three seasons by the middle of Septeml)er, and 

 a week or ten days later were worth six or eight dollars in 

 Boston, though probably the average price through the season 

 was not over three or four dollars. Could not the growing of 

 this pear be made a specialty by some of our farmers in this 

 vicinity, and would they not readily find a market by the hun- 

 dred barrels in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore or Port- 



20 



