188 THE MANAGEMENT OF [CHAP. VII. 



been known to exist twenty years in a garden 

 without ever even showing any blossoms. 

 Various causes have a tendency to produce this 

 effect. The pear being naturally inclined to 

 send down its roots, will do so, unless effec- 

 tually prevented by a chambered border, or a 

 hard rocky subsoil; and if the spongioles of 

 the roots are allowed to descend out of the 

 reach of the air, the tree never can produce 

 good fruit. Planting pear trees in a very rich 

 stiff soil will produce the same effect on them 

 as on wall fruit trees, as before stated. Inju- 

 dicious pruning, particularly in summer, is 

 another cause ; as cutting in young shoots, 

 while the sap is in motion, has a tendency to 

 make the tree throw out two new shoots in the 

 room of every one removed, and thus to ex- 

 haust itself in producing branches. Summer 

 shoots should either be checked by disbudding 

 as soon as they appear, or suffered to remain 

 till winter, when they may be cut in, without 

 exciting the tree to fresh efforts to replace 

 them ; stripping them of their leaves, however, 

 during summer, as directed under Pruning, if 

 they appear likely to exhaust the tree. Much 

 of the fertility of pear trees also depends on the 

 habit of the stock being similar to that of the 

 graft ; and much also on a judicious manner of 

 training. As a wall tree, the pear is always 

 trained horizontally, and spurs are left on all 

 the branches for producing fruit. These spurs 

 used formerly to be left large, and standing out 

 a foot or eighteen inches from the wall; but 

 they are now found to bear best when kept 

 short. According to this plan, every spur is 



