of Rural Art and Taste. 



341 



very much in wood and leaf. It has all the 

 signs of hardiness. Originated near Roxbury, 

 Mass. In it I hope to find our best early 

 winter pear. 



Ott. — Though this is not a new pear, it 

 endures extreme cold so well here, it is well 

 worthy of trial further North, as an early pear 

 of most excellent quality. It is a seedling of 

 the Seckel, which it very closely resembles in 

 tree and foliage. 



Each year in this part of the world, there 

 is more inquiry for pear trees, and each year 

 as more of the wildness (humus) gets out of 

 the soil, they appear to do better. 



The one great fault is the style of trees 

 that are planted. Last fall I asked the most 

 successful pear grower in Pennsylvania, what he 

 considered the best form for a pear tree, how 

 long a trunk he wanted ? He spoke up quick 

 and sharp, "I do not want a pear tree with 

 any trunk ; I want thein to branch from the 

 ground up like a Norway Spruce." That is 

 it exactly, dear reader. Nine-tenths of the 

 pear trees planted in the West were utterly 

 spoiled by being pruned up before they were 

 planted. If pear trees should have no bare 

 trunk in woody and hilly Pennsylvania, how 

 is it in the treeless, level, windy West ? 

 Think of it, a young pear tree with from 

 three to five feet of naked trunk on our 

 j)rairie3 ! Why it is as bad as a man with 

 only shirt and bear skin drawers on, crossing 

 the prairie on a cold, January day. Why, if 

 I were to plant another pear orchard I would 

 not take what are called first class two and 

 three year old pear trees, as a gift, and plant 

 them as they come from the nursery with 

 three to five feet of naked trunk. 



We nurserymen are not to blame ! We 

 cannot sell trees of the right kind ; if we 

 grow them people won't have them. Now if 

 you want a good tree or a good orchard, the 

 only way to do is to buy good trees one year 

 from bud, or two years from root graft (I 

 greatly prefer the last) ; plant them out on 

 dry and rather poor soil, cut them back to a 

 fot)t or eighteen inches ; cultivate them 

 thoroughly four to five years, and never touch 

 them with a knife after the first cutting back, 



except, if the twigs make a growth of over 

 twenty inches, cut them back to that point. 



G-rafting Nursery Stock. 



THERE seems to be an erroneous impres- 

 sion among farmers and others about to 

 plant out an orchard, that the young trees 

 that are offered by nurserymen are from suck- 

 ers, and therefore will not come into bearing 

 in a great while. A man said to me, a few 

 days ago, that he was going to graft a Spy apple, 

 but he would not take his scions from a young 

 tree in the nursery, " for it would be so long 

 coming into bearing." He was under wrong 

 impressions, for I am sure that a scion put in- 

 to a large tree will bring fruit in a very few 

 years, while a young Spy tree is one of the 

 longest coming into bearing of any of the 

 varieties we cultivate. This leads me to 

 what I wish to say : 



The process of budding (and that of grafting, 

 too,) is one of the finest ways of producing 

 thrifty, straight and hardy trees. Nursery- 

 men do not allow the suckers to grow on their 

 stock. The scions used for budding are taken 

 out of the tops of the trees in the nursery, and 

 the buds are put into healthy trees of thrifty 

 growth. In this way we produce trees from 

 five to seven feet high at two or three years of 

 age. A great many of the trees bear fruit in 

 the nursery rows. I have picked this week 

 from three year old trees perfectly foi'med 

 fruit of five varieties of pears, one of cherry, 

 and five of apples, showing that our way of 

 making trees is not inclined to put the bear- 

 ing oif as many years as is supposed by some. 

 — Cor. Country Gentleman. 



Col. Hollister, late of Ohio, who emigrated 

 to California several years ago, has now 700 

 acres of almond grove, and 60,000 trees in 

 bearing, 100,000 orange, lemon, and olive 

 trees. He owns 100,000 acres of land and 

 has 150,000 cattle and sheep. He has bought 

 twenty-six bushels of tea seed in Japan this 

 year, and is going to grow the tea plants 

 extensively. 



