1 26 Dwarf Pears. [March, 



mate ? and ai-e they profitable to cultivate ? These are the questions 

 at issue. I will briefly state what I know from my own experience 

 and observation, and omit quotations from others at a distance, who 

 have had no practical knowledge of what can be done here in the 

 cultivation of the Dwarf Fear. 



I have found several varieties of these miniature fruit trees to 

 succeed admirably with me. Among others, I will mention the 

 Bartlett, Seckel, Tyson, Julienne, White Doyenne, Bloodgood, Louise 

 Bon De Jersey, Glout Morceau, Dutchess D'Angouleme, Doyenne 

 Robin, etc., etc. 



These are planted around the borders of my garden beds, about 

 eight feet apart. They occupy little room, and require but slight 

 attention. Occasionally a sucker from the stock has to be cut away, 

 or a straggling branch shortened in — nothing more. They take care 

 of themselves for anything else. I am well satisfied that if I should 

 manure, hoe, pinch in, water, and prune and fuss about them, as 

 some fidgety cultivators do, that I should either kill them, or get no 

 fruit. 



Some of my neighbors who planted in deeply trenched ground, 

 highly manured, got an enormous growth of wood, hut no fruit. 

 The trees that were afterward removed to poorer soil, now show 

 plenty of fruit buds. 



My own experience in planting Dwarf Pears only extends back 

 eight years, but my observations much farther. The first specimens 

 I saw in perfection were in the garden of my friend, Mr. A. H. 

 Ernst, some ten years ago. They were beautiful in form, and full 

 of fruit. The trees were apparently six or eight years old. Unfor- 

 tunately, the rabbits ate the bark ofi" many of them the next win- 

 ter, and thcv died. 



I had previously been prejudiced against dwarf fruit trees, but the 

 sight of Mr. Ernst's pears overcame my conservatism, and I bought 

 a dozen trees to try for myself. After two years, I bought fifty 

 more, and two years ago one hundred in addition. I have now 

 about one hundred and sixty in all. Some bore a few pears the first 

 year they were planted. Two years ago, a few of those first planted 

 produced from twenty to forty pears each. Even last year, bad as 

 it was for fruit, some of the trees bore fifteen to twenty pears — the 

 trees only five to six feet high. 



Nearly every tree that I have now shows an abundance of fruit 

 buds, and, if this proves to be a good fruit year, may afford a prac- 

 tical refutation of at least one of Mr. Stoms' positions. 



