464 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



New Creations in Fruits. 



PROP. N. E. HANSEN, STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS, 

 BROOKINGS, SOUTH DAKOTA. 



Pears: The topic which interests me the most at present 

 is the pear. Mr. Patten has given you a report of his splendid 

 work in that line, and I wish him success in his efforts. The pear 

 that I am working with happens to be another species, also from 

 North China and eastern Siberia. Since our last meeting Dr. 

 Alfred Render, of the Arnold Arboretum, has published a mono- 

 graph of the oriental pears. The tree called Pyrus Sinensis, or 

 Pyrus Simoni, in my bulletin 159, has since been separated by Dr. 

 Rehder from the other Chinese and eastern Siberia pears into a 

 new species, Pyrus ovoidea. This fruit tapers toward the blos- 

 som end, whereas the ordinary Chinese pear tapers toward the 

 stem. This tree, Pyrus ovoidea, is a large, spreading tree with 

 fine foliage. Its growth is strong enough for a street tree, and 

 it is sufficiently immune to blight to form a safe foundation for 

 our future pears. The past three seasons have been marked by 

 the most severe invasion of blight in the history of this station. 

 No attempt was made to cut out the affected pear, apple and crab 

 apple trees, so these resistant pear seedlings have had every 

 opportunity to blight, standing as they do in the same row with 

 the blighted trees. 



None of these new seedlings have borne fruit, but I deemed 

 it best to send out some one year trees under restrictions since 

 it is highly important to determine as soon as possible their re- 

 sistance to blight under all conditions. The original trees of 

 Pyrus betulifolia suffered severely from blight the past season, 

 so that the series of hybrids with this species, N. E. H. 1-13, in- 

 clusive, will be discarded. Most of the Pyrus ovoidea hybrids, 

 N. E. H. 14-39 inclusive, are still very promising, as they have 

 proven resistant against blight the past three years. The trees 

 are one year old buds on Japan pear and seedlings of Japan pear, 

 Kieffer pear or French pear. My opinion at present is that the 

 Japan pear will be the best commercial stock. This agrees with 

 experience on the Pacific coast, where the Japan pear, which is 

 also a form of the Chinese sand pear, Pyrus Sinensis, is found 

 to be blight-resistant. My present impression is that the Japan 

 pear stocks are not fully hardy, so the young trees will need to be 

 carefully mulched over winter to guard against root-killing. The 

 varying hardiness of the Japan pear seedlings as grown from im- 



