of Rural Art and Taste. 



307 



eating and pleasure as a baked apple, I know 

 no apple so good as the Golden Summer Sweet 

 I have just spoken of. Let us at least be 

 wise enough to know that there are other good 

 pears besides the popular rage for Bartletts 

 and Seckles. Said an extensive dealer to me 

 the other day, " I sell ten to one of these two, 

 Bartletts and Seckles." You must educate 

 especially young married housekeepers to the 

 value of other kinds. So I have said a word 

 to the wise. 



D"warf Pear Trees. 



IN a discussion on this subject by the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society at an early 

 meeting of this year, Mr. Charles M. Hovey 

 excepted to the rooting of dwarfs from the 

 pear, believing it would be better to let them 

 run out their natural lives and then take them 

 up. He thought they would not make as 

 good standards as those originally grafted on 

 pear stocks, on account of their tendency to 

 send out one or two strong roots on one side 

 of the tree, instead of rooting regularly all 

 around the tree. If allowed to root from the 

 pear, they must either be planted at the 

 proper distance for standards at first, or 

 thinned out to such a distance. 



Mr. Wood admitted the tendency to which 

 Mr. Hovey objected, but said that it could 

 easily be obviated by the operation of 

 "lipping;" that is, removing the earth and 

 cutting several tongues at intervals around 

 the tree by an upward cut with a gouge or 

 knife, beginning to cut at the bottom of the 

 swelling of the pear where it joins the quince. 

 These cuts should be from an inch to an inch 

 and a half long and a quarter of an inch wide, 

 and kept open by pressing a little earth under 

 the tongue. The earth should be replaced 

 over them, when they will soon send out roots 

 freely all around the tree. The best time to 

 perform the operation is after the middle of 

 June, when the tree is growing rapidly and 

 the ground is warm, so as to excite the pro- 

 duction of roots. The soil should be kept 

 moist by mulching or otherwise ; in fact, the 

 conditions of success are precisely the same 

 as those required for striking cuttinsrs. 



Standards made in this way have the advan- 

 tage over those grafted on seedling pear stocks 

 that they do not send down long tap roots in- 

 to cold, ungenial soils, to the injury of the 

 tree and fruit. 



Marshall P. Wilder had had a great deal 

 of experience with dwarf pear trees during 

 the last forty years, and was strongly in favor 

 of them on account of their early bearing. 

 Two-thirds of his collection were originally on 

 quince roots, and by using this stock he was 

 not only able to test many new varieties in 

 much less time than would have been required 

 with standards, but to furnish himself with 

 fruit in a very few years. Viewed in this 

 light dwarfs were not only exceedingly useful 

 to the amateur and experimenter with new 

 fruits, but a great blessing to the family. He 

 did not concur with Mr. Hovey's view that 

 the dwarf, when rooting from the pear, sends 

 out one-sided roots. Some varieties, such as 

 the Vicar, send out roots freely all round, 

 without the trouble of lipping, and, the quince 

 dying out, they made the very best standards 

 he had got. His system was to plant stand- 

 ards sixteen feet apart, with dvrarfs between, 

 and when the standards grew so large as to 

 require all the room, the dwarfs which had 

 rooted from the pear were transplanted to 

 other situations, and were found to be amply 

 supplied with fibrous roots, without any tap 

 root whatever. In this way a large propor- 

 tion of his trees were made. Where varieties 

 like the Bartlett, Doyenne Boussock, and 

 Belle Lucrative send out roots from one side 

 only, they still make fine standards when 

 they get well established. In regard to the 

 durability of trees on quince roots, Mr. Wil- 

 der said that he had some which, though not 

 rooted from the pear, were more than thirty 

 years old, among which were Urbanistes, that 

 each bore regularly more than a barrel a year. 



Canning Stra-wberries. 



STRAWBERRIES are found by some 

 diflBcult to can, but we have found it 

 otherwise. Our wife has practiced canning 

 this excellent fruit for, at least, fifteen years. 

 and has met with no more failures in this 



