CULTIVATION OF TUE PEAB-TREE. 



excellent variety on its own stock, its boiiji^hs loaded with all the fruit it could 

 comfortably bear,- with nut a few sickly starveliiijc specimens on the quince, with only 

 here and there a solitary pear, and a very dillerent opinion miglit be formed of 

 the success of the pear on the quince. 



My trees on both pear and quince wore planted at the same time, received 

 equal care in plantinjr, stand upon the same plat of ground, and occujiy alternate 

 rows. The space between the trees has enjoyed as equal culture as possible. As 

 regards their annual pruning, though not as rigidly performed, especially in the 

 earlier years as I now could wish, and, with my present views I would now give 

 them, still the eye of the amateur will not detect any great departure from the 

 most approved method, or if he recognizes early errors, will perceive they have 

 been measurably remedied in later years. I am satisfied that no one, during the 

 earlier years of his experience, ever prunes with a sufliciently rigid hand; this is a 

 faculty acquired only by long years of experience. Well do I remember turning 

 my back upon an experienced cultivator while he was giving me my first practical 

 lessons; the conviction was overwhelming that there was a needless, profligate 

 waste of those fondly watched towering shoots. Notwithstanding all the instruc- 

 tions that have been given, and the necessity of their being observed if we would 

 have good fruit, I venture the remark that it is the last advice that is heeded by 

 the inexperienced, who forget that the wood and fruit force are antagonistic prin- 

 ciples. 



Experience has taught me that ray best crops have been obtained where the 

 system of pruning was so close as to leave but three or four buds of the previous 

 summer's grovrth. The past season, an entire row of dwarf trees showed a second 

 crop of blossoms, when the fruit set was about the size of a walnut. Such a 

 phenomenon evidently obtains when nature feels herself thwarted in having suf- 

 fered the loss of a large proportion of the fruit-buds from the knife of the pruner ; 

 the crop that she has started and is carrying forward to maturity being inade- 

 quate to enable nature to expend upon it her accumulated fruit force. The same 

 thing may be observed where an accident has befallen the tree in the loss of some 

 of its main branches, or a violent storm has robbed it of a greater part of its 

 crop of fruit. 



As this occurs in my grounds to the prolific varieties only, and those on the 

 quince, it suggests the thought whether the knife is not too vigorously used, and 

 whether it might not be a better practice to thin the crop when half advanced, 

 when we can pluck the illy-formed and stung fruit at a time so late as to forbid 

 nature expending her energies at the expense of the already well-formed and 

 half-grown fruit. 



Your v.estern readers will understand our difficulties when I contrast their 

 fertile soil with my own. The plat of ground selected for my pear orchard is at 

 the base of a mound known to be occupied in 16G6, so that it is literally true that 

 for nearly two hundred years the land has been yielding up its inorganic elements; 

 and thus it is with most of the soil devoted to the pear on the whole Atlantic 



