Our Pear Culture all J^iackcry. ii 



upon standard trees grown in £-rass — a favorite theory of the editor 

 of the Monthly, and one which he has urged as likely to make pears 

 as plenty as "huckleberries." Dr. Houghton says, — 



" It is the fashion to praise standard trees as the only kind which can 

 be depended upon to produce constant crops of fine fruit ; when the 

 fact is, that the finest fruit has not been produced on standard trees, 

 and that crops of good marketable fruit cannot be obtained from such 

 trees for any length of time, with any degree of certainty. On standard 

 trees, even in the best condition, scarcely half of any crop is market- 

 able at one dollar per bushel, and not over one quarter of any crop is 

 suited to first-class fruit stores." 



Where, we would ask the doctor, is it the fashion to praise standard 

 trees as the only kind which can be depended upon ? Certainly, for a 

 period of thirty-four years, during which time we have chronicled the 

 progress of pear growing, we never heard of any such statement by 

 any intelligent cultivator. It may have been the fashion in Philadel- 

 phia, where wc never saw manv fine pears : certainly nowhere else. 

 But, again, what does the doctor mean by standard ? An orchard tree, 

 or merelv one grown on the pear stock, whether dwarf or tall ? If the 

 latter, then he has made a gross error when he says that not half the 

 crop is marketable at one dollar the bushel. If he had had the most 

 casual observation of our own trees, or asked for any records of the 

 crop, he would never have made such a statement. It so happens that 

 we have the results of our own pear culture in black and white, made 

 for our own satisfaction, and never intended for publication ; but it so 

 completely refutes the doctor's statement, that we have been at the 

 pains to give the figures. Of course they are for the latitude of Bos- 

 ton, where there is no lack of the finest pears. 



Our pear orchard is composed of standards chiefl}-, say sixteen hun- 

 dred out of t\\'o thousand trees, mostly planted from 1S43 to 1850, and 

 now twenty to thirty years old. They have had no pruning for three 

 years, no manuring of any consequence, stand thickly together, and have 

 received very little care. Here is the entire crop for eight years, in 

 kinds and bushels, and the product in dollars and cents : — 



