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Clapp's Favourite for a summer pear. With respect to Mr. Willard's theory of 

 obtaining blight-proof pears, a few years ago they accused me of having pear oik 

 the brain. I was experimenting largely by hybridizing different varieties ; and the 

 worst of my seedlings to blight was the result of a cross between the Duchesse 

 d'Angouleme and the Seckel. I think they are all gone. Those that appear to resist 

 the blight best are the result of a cross of Osband's Summer with Duchesse. I have some 

 seedlings that are very fine, but not fruited yet, which are from that cross. Therefore I 

 fancy we have as good a chance by selecting the tenderest as by choosing the hardiest ; 

 they seem to become acclimatized. I take a good deal of pleasure in studying the theory 

 of Van Mons, who has done more, I think, than any other man to improve the ])ear. 

 He never hybridized, but supplied the seeds from the first seeds that were produced on a 

 seedling ; and he always argued they continued to improve until the third or fourth gen- 

 eration. After that they commenced to deteriorate. It always appeared to him that 

 the first blossoms on a young pear tree were quite likely to be ftfrtilized from a neigh- 

 bouring tree ; consequently that he actually obtained crosses until the tree had attained 

 some age. 



Mr. Biggar. — What is your success with the Duchesse d'Angouleme ? 



Mr. Dempsey. — The frost affects it ; but it is a good fruit. I do not want to eat it. 

 The Duchesse d'Angouleme matures in December. I do not fancy that coarseness that it 

 has. I should have said something about the blight, perhaps. In our section of the country 

 everybody was planting Flemish Beauty pears a few years ago. I had that fever myself 

 until I got five or six hundred of them, and they went back on me. A fruit-grower 

 there was priding himself two years ago with having the finest pear orchard in all that 

 part of the country. I visited his grounds last summer ; and it would be a little too- 

 hard to say that there was not a pear tree there then that was worth anything ; but 

 really I think that if I did so I should be telling the truth. They were all blighted. 

 However, I attributed that to the dry weather more than to any other cause. 



Mr. Orr. — What is your objection to the Seckel ? 



Mr. Dempsey. — If I were to speak with regard to all my favourite pears, and to 

 include all the varieties that I liked the list would become very large. I have fruited 

 about two hundred varieties. My aim simply is to recommend a pear that will sell in 

 the market, and at the same time be an amateur pear. The Seckel is not profitable to 

 produce for market purposes ; but I will ask nothing better to eat than the Seckel pear 

 in the season. The system that we have adopted for pruning standard pears is to let 

 them do that themselves ; we do not prune them at all. I fancy the less cultivation they 

 have the better. With respect to manuring, we find nothing that will swell the fruit sO' 

 rapidly as sulphate of iron — common copperas. Just dissolve it and apply it in a liquid: 

 state in the summer occasionally. Sulphate of iron and ashes are two of just about the 

 best fertilizers I have ever found for pears. The manure should be, I fancy, applied to 

 the surface of the soil. 



Mr. Biggar. — Some four or five years ago I sent in some pears with a young man, 

 I coming on the cars ; and when I arrived he told me the fruit dealers here said the fruit 

 was too large. These pears were Flemish Beauties. I sold them at twenty-five cents a 

 basket more, however, than I sold my smaller ones for. I had not many large pears^ 

 until this year, when I sent three baskets of very large pears to a fruit dealer, telling the- 

 young man who took them that if she objected to them he was to take them to another 

 party I named. Just as I expected the first person I sent them to refused to take them 

 on account of their being so large. They were too large to sell. I find that the Flemish 

 Beauty overbears with me. I have been in the habit of pruning back every year about 

 one-third of the new wood. Would the pruning have any eflfect on the bearing, do you. 

 think. 



Mr. Dempsey. — My experience is different from yours. We often have the ther- 

 mometer sink to thirty below zero in the winter. Pruning would not do with us, though 

 it might with you ; because pruning increases the wood. The Souvenir du Congres was 

 the only variety that I missed any from last winter on account of the frost. We had 

 shoots of about four feet growth on them ; and they grew so fast that they were not 

 prepared for the severe frost in the early part of the winter. I find that I can grow a 



