PROTECTION AGAINST CANKER-WORMS. 225 



very sure, from the attention that my man in the garden has 

 paid to them, that very few have been able to pass over the 

 tarred paper that I have put around the trees. In a few- 

 instances, where the rain affected the tar so that it did not 

 stick to them, they would get over it. 



Mr. Goodman. I should take some exception to the remarks 

 of Dr. Durfee, so far as our locality is concerned. It won't do 

 to say that apples cannot be raised on account of the canker- 

 worm. There are no canker-worms in the western part of the 

 State. In that part of the State, there is a large quantity of 

 land adapted to apple-trees, that cannot be used for anything 

 else. Therefore, we find apples a good crop to raise, on land 

 that is almost barren, or, from its exposed situation hardly 

 adapted to farming purposes. We raise large crops of apples 

 up there, and find them a valuable crop, and shall continue to 

 raise them. 



So it is with pears. There is no tree that is so much affected 

 by the soil as the pear. You cannot raise pears on the sandy, 

 gravelly soil of Connecticut ; but take a soil with some clay in it, 

 or a good loam, and pears will grow there. Although I agree 

 that pears on quince stock are not so good as others, still, they are 

 good. They were grown in that way among the ancients. The 

 ancient Greeks always cultivated the pear in that way, and it 

 was the only way they could do it. It grows much more rap- 

 idly on the quince stock than on the pear. The practice with 

 us is, to grow dwarfs in between the standard trees, and the 

 dwarfs die out before the others come into bearing, or, at any 

 rate, soon after, and then the ground is cleared. I have some 

 forty dwarf trees, and this year they have all borne profusely, 

 so that I had to support the limbs. That land has been in 

 pretty good condition, all the time. I always top-dress in the 

 fall, and mulch to some extent, and those trees have borne 

 fully for many years. But there are standards which are 

 highly recommended for a great many purposes, particularly 

 for coming into early bearing. We have the " Doyenne d'Etd," 

 now recommended as the best early pear. The standard tree 

 will come into bearing in four or five years. The only trouble 

 with it is, it is a rapid grower and a heavy bearer, and wants 

 pruning, and the land ought not to be highly cultivated. That 



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