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Mr. Willard.— I believe the cause of peach yellow, if ever ascertained, will be 

 found to be the same as that which produces the blight in the pear. I believe that the 

 investigation that is now going on in the minds of some of our scientific men in the 

 country, as well as in the minds of men who are practical, is going to result in giving us 

 ultimately varieties of pears that will be more or less free from the blight, while at the 

 same time combining productiveness to a sufficient degree to make them profitable. As 

 I said with regard to grapes this morning, I am a great stickler for blood, and I believe we 

 have to look in a measure to something that gets back near to the seedling for a variety 

 of pear that is not only going to be free from blight, but also to be sufficiently productive 

 to be profitable. I believe that the Seckel is one of those varieties that to a very great 

 extent throughout the United States is free from blight. I have never seen a pear called 

 the Doctor Reeder blight, although I have seen it surrounded by trees that blighted to 

 the ground. 



A Member. — Hear, hear ; that is so. 



Mr. Willard. — The wood of the Doctor Pveeder is very rugged, showing a rugged- 

 ness of constitution which abundantly fits it to resist disease. I have a list here of varie- 

 ties which T have found to be quite free from blight. The Sterling is one which, I find, 

 has never blighted in Michigan. The Seckel I have mentioned. The Rutter, a pear 

 which originated in the vicinity of Philadelphia, shows by its growth that it has a rugged 

 constitution. I have seen the Bartlett, the Flemish Beauty, and the Clapp's Favourite 

 on my own ground blight around the Rutter, while I have never seen the Rutter blight 

 at all ; and while not of the highest quality, the Rutter is as good as the Duchess, I think. 

 He wrote to me this fall that if I had sufficient of those pears I would have no trouble in 

 getting ten dollars a barrel for them ; and I am quite satisfied with that. Another pear 

 which may be known to some of you is the English Jargonelle. It is an early summer 

 pear. I have seen it in an orchard in which everything else around it was blighted — in 

 which there were perhaps no trees five years ago — and yet that English Jargonelle stood 

 there without a single blighted stick in it. The Duchesse d'Angouleme is not inclined 

 to blight very much. I have found the Doyenne Boussock not inclined to blight. I have 

 growing on my ground, surrounded at one time with Bartletts, Clapps and Flemish 

 Beauty which have since been swept off by the blight, standing there with them untouched, 

 three of the Chinese Sand pear. I have been growing from them some seedlings. What 

 they may amount to I do not know, but I made up my mind there was some good stock 

 to work on any way. I do not think the Chinese Sand pear amounts to anything as fruit, 

 but I understood there were those who regarded them as a great cooking pear. There is 

 a man in Pennsylvania who has originated a pear which he claims as bred from the 

 Chinese pear and the Bartlett — the Kieffer. As soon as I heard of it the thought struck 

 me, " He has got a good thing there," and I accordingly tried it a little, and my expex'i- 

 ence in relation to it is this : — I found last year away out in the outskirts of Kansas a 

 man growing them who said they were blight proof. I have planted a tree of it which 

 I procured two years ago ; and this year, although the tree has been cut to pieces for 

 buds, and handled as badly as it could be, we had eleven perfect pears on it. I have seen 

 it fruit in the nursery. It has vigorous foliage ; and, I think, a good deal of foliage. 

 Give me a plum tree that will hold its foliage as I would like to have it, and I will give 

 you a tree that will stand the winter as a rule. Well, now, the foliage of that tree is 

 like the foliage of a Lombardy Poplar. I was afraid somewhat in regard to its hardiness 

 until last winter. Last year I planted out twenty -three trees, and as I wanted the wood 

 pretty badly at the time I cut them off about three feet high. Well, those trees wintered 

 perfectly, and this year we cut an immense amount of buds ofl them, notwithstanding the 

 severity of the weather. The productiveness is beyond all question. There has been a 

 difference of opinion in regard to the quality, but not greater perhaps than exists with 

 regard to the Beurre Clairgeau. I have eaten Beurre Clairgeaus that I did not consider 

 better than raw turnip, and I have fruited them myself of superior quality. With re- 

 gard to all these pears I assume that their quality is enhanced or reduced very greatly by 

 the manner of handling them. I had feax'S that that pear, originating in a warmer climate, 

 might not do equally well with us up there. I went one day to look at them, and I found 

 five of them had been taken by somebody else, and that there were only six left. I put 



