40 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



dered they are better reconciled, and 

 appear perfectly pleased with the bar- 

 gain. The buyers have lost a little on 

 their investments in soft sorts or fall 

 apples, and they will in the future be 

 shy at offering for them, except for 

 home markets, as foreign shipment is 

 found to be very unsatisfactory. They 

 say the only alternative is for farmers 

 to regraft to harder and better shipping 

 sorts. But on the whole I assure you 

 that this year, with farm produce of all 

 kinds so low in price, and business so 

 dull, and money so hard to get, the 

 apple crop has been a great boon, and 

 coming in so easily without any special 

 outlay it has helped very much ; as 

 some of them say, they do not know 

 what they would have done without it. 



THE PEAR 



Is rapidly growing to be a very interest- 

 ing variety of hardy and delicious fruit, 

 and our people are more and more ap- 

 preciating its real value. It so happens 

 that in this county we have very much 

 excellent soil, perfectly adapted to suc- 

 cessful growth of pear trees and pears. 

 We have many acres of strong alluvial 

 clay loams that, when well under- 

 drained, make the very best soils to 

 produce good pears. And even if these 

 should be found to be too stimulating 

 so as to produce the much dreaded fun- 

 gus known as blight, yet we are not 

 stopped in our efforts or daunted in our 

 prospects. We have along the whole 

 course of the beautiful River Aux Sable, 

 traversing our county, many fine loca- 

 tions, splendidly well drained clay hills 

 of immense fertility, that will produce 

 pear wood in slower growths and per- 

 fectly free from all fungus attacks or 

 blights. These can, and no doubt will 

 in the near future, become utilized for 

 these and similar purposes in many 

 broad acres. There is nothing but lack 

 of enterprise to hinder us from using 

 these splendid soils of ours and pro- 



ducing pears at least equal, if not greatly 

 superior, to the far-famed regions of 

 Lockport and Rochester, N.Y. The 

 crop this season has been very large, 

 and prices at one time fell quite low for 

 such fine fruit as was ofiered. The 

 Bartlett and the Flemish Beauty are 

 still the great staple pears of this sec- 

 tion, and there is more of these pro- 

 duced then all others together. They 

 are so hardy in the tree, so fine in the 

 fruit, and so productive, that everybody 

 desires to plant them, and will do so 

 with the greatest assurance of the best 

 results in the basket. The trees planted 

 are mostly standards, on pear roots, but 

 few dwarfs are used. Besides these 

 old and well known sorts, a few White 

 Doyenne, Clapp's Favorite, Louise 

 Bonne de Jersey, and Seckel are grown. 

 But this last, though of the highest 

 quality, is too small for the market, 

 and consequently not popular amongst 

 growers. The pears known as Beurre 

 pears are some of them very fine and of 

 excellent quality. We this year fruited 

 Beurre Clairgeau, and are very much 

 pleased with it as a fine, showy pear of 

 excellent quality. We fruited also the 

 pear known as Dr. Reeder, a middling 

 sized, high flavored pear, that will suc- 

 cessfully take the place of Seckel, and 

 the bearing qualities of the tree are 

 immense. As the knowledge and fine 

 tastes of our people are annually culti- 

 vated up to better standards, so there 

 will be no lack of pears and other fine 

 and delicious fruits to gratify these im- 

 proved tastes and demands. 



THE PLUM. 



The conditions of soil and climate for 

 successful plum culture are similar to 

 those for the pear, and a good pear 

 region is a good plum region. There 

 are, however, some difficulties to plum 

 culture, outside of climate and soil, that 

 we do not know how to cope with. A 

 few years ago we could raise plums in 



