PEARS. 207 



It has been proved that by innoculating a healthy tree with 

 the germs a state of disease is produced. Bees or other insects 

 may transfer this disease from one part of a tree to another, or 

 from a diseased tree to a healthy one. 



The only efficient remedy is to cut away all diseased portions 

 leaving only the healthy wood. 



Scab is another disease that in some sections is very much to 

 be feared, but it is rather a wet weather disease, we have little 

 to fear from it except in phenomonally wet seasons. 



The means of fighting this foe is found in the spray pump 

 with the Bordeaux mixture. 



But after all the pear has no more diseases than other fruits, 

 and it is well deserving of more attention than the horticul- 

 turists of our state have heretofore allowed it, and if anj'-thing 

 that I, a common farmer, can say, will cause my brother farmers 

 to take up this much neglected fruit and give it the place that 

 it deserves, then will these feeble efforts not have been in 

 vain. 



But even if you are not quite sure that I have convinced you 

 that the pear will give you a profitable return for labor and 

 money expended, experiment on your own account, plant 

 both the dwarf and standard varieties and plant for fruit both 

 early and late. 



Others have experimented with the cherry and apple until 

 they are growing where the men of twenty-five years ago said 

 it was folly to plant them, so let it be with the pear. 



Let us no longer dream of the old pear tree back of the wood 

 shed on grandfather's farm back east, but let us anticipate a 

 near realization of an ideal western home, where the pear tree 

 shall become a boquet of snowy white in early spring, its 

 branches bending beneath a weight of gold in days of autumn. 



I presume that by this time you have made up your minds 

 that what I do not know about pears would make a very large 

 and interesting volume and my surpries at being asked to ad- 

 dress this honorable assembly upon this subject was very great 

 and could hardly have been greater had I been called upon to 

 tell Rockerfeller how to make money out of oil, or explain to 

 Jim Hill the best plan to buy up a railroad. 



