126 THE PEAK UPON THE QUINCE STOCK. 



" 6. Keep tlie branches low, and make a pyramidal 

 tree, by judicious pruning once or twice a year. A tree 

 with a heavy, high top, must not be upon the Quince. 

 Levels or gentle slopes are better than hills or rolling 

 ground. 



'' It is a fortunate circumstance that most of the best 

 market varieties are also best suited to the quince 

 stock. Yery often the grafted tree, when placed in 

 silicious (sandy) soil or loam, forms its own roots just 

 where it has been budded ; and then, with the steadi- 

 ness of the pear stock, it retains the fertility of the 

 Quince. 



" Much has been said about the sho7't-livhig of the 

 quince stock. If properly planted in genial soil, which 

 is not exhausted or impoverished by interveniug field 

 crops without a reasonable supply of manure, as most 

 of our apple orchards are ; if free from ill weeds and 

 shrubs, and other drawbacks, the quince-grafted tree 

 will thrive for fifty years or more. Some actual facts 

 will prove what I state. Hon. M. P. "Wilder lias in 

 his garden, in Dorchester, trees which he bought from 

 the widow of Mr. Parmentier, Long Island, some 

 twenty years ago. They have yielded fine crops 

 almost every year. Some have been regrafted with 

 new varieties ; one of them with Beurre Clairgeau, 

 which bore this year between one and two bushels 

 of the finest and largest pears. These trees look 

 healthy, despite all their mutilations, and there is 

 no reason to anticipate a diminution of growth or 

 crops. These trees are on the Quince^ but they have 

 been planted by a man who knows how to manage 

 trees. 



