Successful Pear Culture. 33^ 



After the first couple of years, during which the trees are severely 

 pruned, to give shape and produce vigorous growth (the pruning-knife 

 is the poor man's manure), he chiefly relies on summer pinching to 

 develop the fruitfulness of the tree as well as to shape it. 



He regards summer pinching, after the first two years, as being 

 better than depending on winter pruning, as it does not create the large 

 mass of small, wiry twigs that long-continued winter j^runing produces. 

 By careful summer pinching, all the ends desirable in winter pruning 

 are reached, with the addition of strong limbs, well-rijDcned wood, and 

 early fruitfulness. 



He trains standard pears to branch low down, so that they shall be 

 much in shape like a well-grown Norway spruce. It will be found 

 that on the end of the limb summer pinched a knob forms ; this 

 should be removed in early spring, together with the second growth 

 that often starts after pinching. 



COMPARATIVE VALUE OF STANDARD AND DWARF PEAR TREES. 



Mr. Martin has had the best of success with dwarf pears, and values 

 them highly. While the standard pear will eventually become the more 

 valuable, yet the dwarf jDroduces fruit so soon that he advocates the 

 planting of them. His dwarfs have produced four or five large crops, 

 and promise to be fruitful for many years to come. High-trained 

 standards do not produce as good fruit as dwarfs, but as between low- 

 trained standards and dwarfs he sees but little difference in the quality 

 of the fruit. His total loss by blight for ten years, of both standards 

 and dwarfs, has been but two per cent., and the account stands in favor 

 of dwarfs. Root pruning of those on pear roots is resorted to, should 

 they not be fruitfully inclined. 



He plants ten feet by ten feet when dwarfs and standards are planted 

 together, and ten feet by fifteen feet when standards alone, and on thin 

 soil, sometimes standards ten feet by ten feet, and then trains low. He 

 does not believe in the uncalled-for practice of converting dwarfs into 

 standards. 



