224 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



largely, and may in time supplant the French article entirely. They are more- 

 vigorous, just as hardy, less liable to leaf-blight or rust, grow later, hence the 

 budding season is extended. Trees grown on Japan stock are much better rooted 

 than on LeConte, and equal to those grown on French stock. Possibly the Le 

 Conte may have a future as a stock, but we confess our inability to see on what its 

 chances for the distinction can rest. 



TBE PEAR. 



BY A. A. BLUMER. 



If the apple be the king of fruits, the pear is surely the queen. What edible 

 luxury can be compared to a ripened pear? What healthier? And yet it can be 

 grown nearly as cheap as apples, while they sell twice as high, and there is always 

 a market for them, and bear as surely, and can be had from August to May. I 

 never saw a failure till the last two years. Last spring pear-trees, like appl 38, 

 were a perfect bouquet of bloom, but while thus in their gay attire a Siberian and 

 boreal night destroyed, not only the embryo pear, but, also, that of all other fruit 

 without exception, large as well as small ; but these occurrences are phenomenal,, 

 and should not discourage any one from planting. 



The pear is as hardy as the apple, and less subject to disease or insects. Yes,^ 

 sometimes the blight affects them, and no preventive has as yet been found, though 

 salt by one party, and 10 grains of calomel inserted under the bark by another 

 party, have been suggested. Blight, like cholera, is periodical and epidemic ; like 

 cholera it affects such trees whose unpropltious soil and starving state predisposes 

 to and invites it, while others not enfeebled by over- bearing, planted in clay soil, 

 pruned and fed, laugh at it. a 



Pear-trees do not like wet feet ; the hole should be deep enough and drained 

 to avoid it. A rich alluvial soil, and a sandy one, while producing an astonishingly 

 rapid growth, the trees invariably come to an early end, proving a total loss, and 

 particularly standard trees. The quince roots can better bear the asperities of soil 

 and vicissitudes of the weather ; hence the advisability of planting dwarf trees, 

 and if these be set three or four inches deeper, emit new tiers of roots above the 

 bed, and become half standard, bearing full crops of the finest fruit; but here it 

 requires courage ; the fruit ought to be thinned fully one-half, or the constitution 

 of the trees will be ruined if permitted to ripen all of its fruit ; liberal pruning in 

 due time must not be forgotten. 1 have now in my cellar a few Beurre d' Aojou 

 and a few Lawrence pears ; and here comes the question, which varieties of pears 

 do and pay best, and which are less liable to blight ? 



Horticultural writers, among them the late P. Barry, affirm that Beurre 

 d'Anjou, Duchess d'Angouleme and Seckel are comparatively exempt from blight ; 

 so says C. T. Mallinkrodt, of St. Charles, to be the Krull— a real winter pear— he 

 introduced a few years ago ( 1 kept a few of these in my cellar until the month of 

 May ) ; and the Bloomington nursery of the Longworth, originated at Dubuque, 

 lo., and introduced lately, they assert to be iron-clad; but the pear, like many 

 other fruits, have sometimes defective anthers, stigma and pistils, which do not 

 fertilize for want of pallen ; hence it is safer to plant several varieties alternately 

 for pollenization. 



The Bartlett and Clapp's Favorite being early, invariably bring a good price, 

 particularly the first named, yet the winter pears, if kept in a dry and cool cellar 

 about 45° F. , and offered for sale at Christmas and New Years, usually bring a re- 

 munerative price. I never sold any pears at hame for less than $1.50 to $1.00 a 

 bushel. There are in Missouri thousands of acres of land to be had for a trifle. 



