232 Notes and Gleanings. 



wholly unripened and unprepared, and all those new adolescent branches are 

 backward with the frost, and the whole tree must be greatly shocked and more 

 or less permanently diseased. That such trees should yield to the blighting 

 fungus seems in no wise strange. The tree has passed through the feverish 

 vicissitudes of summer, has been often wounded in root and top, and, finally, has 

 been exposed to the severities of winter while in summer clothing, and it is quite 

 to be expected that the abased and weakened thing should yield to the attacks 

 of disease. 



Prevention of Blight. 



Now, whatever will keep the leaves on the trees through the season, whether 

 it be high culture, special manuring, root-pruning, mulching, or grassing, is bet- 

 ter than any other management which is accompanied with leaf blight. Without 

 giving any opinion as to which of these methods is best, I will state two facts : I 

 planted a dozen Flemish Beauty trees nine years ago ; have given them moderate 

 annual culture. They are all alive and in apparent health to-day, but they have 

 been badly defoliated for several summers past, and never matured many fruit 

 buds, and I have never got a barrel of pears from them all. A neighbor of mine 

 planted a few of the same variety out of the same bundle. He set his trees in 

 ground that he seeded down a year or two after, and which has remained in sod 

 ever since, and he says he has never manured them. His trees are as large as 

 mine, and he has had three or four crops, getting over three bushels to the tree 

 in one season — the pears of fine size. I don't know that the grass was good 

 for them, but I shall try what grass will do for mine. Now, please don't anybody 

 report me as recommending you to plant trees in grass, for I don't make any 

 recommendation. I think it is only the naturally strong and vigorous trees 

 which will ever amount to anything if planted in grass — or anywhere else. 



Varieties. 



I don't wish to speak of varieties, as so much depends upon particular locali- 

 ties and management. It seems unfortunate that so large a share of all our 

 trees ripen their fruit in August and September. We need more early kinds, 

 and many more later ones. Nature designed the pear season to continue as long 

 as that of apples. 



Eternal Vigilance. 



I will only say further, that successful pear growing depends upon fitness of 

 soil, climate, and varieties, and the largest energy and thoroughness of manage- 

 ment. Whatever system of culture is adopted, laziness, slovenliness, and neg- 

 lect will not win. If I have deprecated the too general violation of Nature's 

 plans, I have not meant that all could be left to Nature, for ^ 



" Ours is an art that cloth 

 Mend nature." 



[The above excellent essay was read by our correspondent, Parker Earle, Esq., 

 of South Pass, 111., at the late meeting of the Central IHinois Horticultural So 



