142 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



depth, and the subsoil was a quick sand, al- 

 most always saturated with water. This I 

 prepared for my commercial pear orchard by 

 a complete drainage system. Through the 

 lowest part I ran a drain five feet deep to 

 the lake, and into this I ran side drains 60 

 feet apart, so fitted as to empty vertically and 

 never clog. 



Varieties. — Being satisfied that pears in 

 cold storage would carry safely to the 



Fig. 2281. Export Pears — Bartlett. 



British market, I next planted 2,700 trees. I 

 planted too many varieties. 



'''■What varieties "would you plant nowP'^ 

 someone asked. 



*'I would plant Duchess, Louise, Bartlett, 

 Anjou, Kieffer and Hardy." 



"I would add Howell to the list," said 

 the writer, *' and Bosc." 



"Well, my Bosc trees are not good grow- 



ers, and that is the fault I find with that 

 variety." 



** Top graft them on some good grower, 

 and they would do better," was the reponse. 

 " What is the Hardy like?'' asked a 

 grower. 



"It is a beauiful, smooth, even sized 

 variety, of excellent quality, of about the 

 same season as Duchess : the tree is vigor- 

 ous and never blights." 



' ' What distance apart did you 

 plant?'' 



*' Well, for the most part the 

 rows are twenty feet apart, and 

 the trees ten feet apart in the 

 rows, every other a dwarf. I 

 wish now they were all about 

 16 X 16, and the dwarfs by them- 

 selves." 



Tillage. — I gave the pear or- 

 chard clean tillage at first ; but 

 later I tried rape, crimson clover 

 and cow peas, and they all 

 seemed to fail on stiff clay, 

 without a special manuring. 

 Clean tillage I found induced 

 pear blight ; so I sowed clover, 

 and since have not applied barn 

 manure to my pear orchard, 

 and indeed the soil has not 

 seemed to require it, for I have 

 had beautiful large, high colored 

 fruit, and excellent growth of 

 wood on the trees. Crimson 

 clover has done well with me ; 

 I sowed it in July, and cut it in 

 the following June, disked the 

 ground, and it reseeded itself. I ploughed 

 the ground in July, a week or two after it 

 was cut, and it came up a thick heavy crop, 

 too deep rooted to be scalded by the hot 



Fruit Growers' Institutes. — Mr. L. Wool- 

 verton addressed the meeting in the absence 

 of Secretary Creelman, on the advantages 



