THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 211 



there waVt one left arter three years. But now I see 

 Jotham Sparrowgrass and Timothy Bunker are tew indi 

 viduals, if not more.&quot; 



Jake Frink s eyes hung out as he went round the gar 

 den, spying the pears, about as much as when he saw that 

 first crop of hay in the horse-pond lot. I have kept back 

 my pears from bearing more than most cultivators do, and 

 think I find my account in it. Gentlemen who own small 

 lots in the city or country village are apt to be in a hurry 

 to realize ; they let every fruit that sets hang on, even the 

 first year. This is particularly bad for the bottom limbs 

 of dwarfs, which are the most difficult to coax into a 

 generous growth. If they bear much fruit they will not 

 make wood, and the bottom of your pyramid is spoiled. 

 I have seen a good many dwarfs killed outright by over 

 bearing. With the standards there is not so much danger 

 indeed, none at all, if we except the Bartlett, and a few 

 other early-bearing varieties. 



I picked off all the fruit for three years, and threw all 

 the force of the trees into wood. If I can get good, stout 

 wood, well ripened in the fall, I consider this the best crop 

 a tree can bear for four years at least. If a tree is a bad 

 grower, I keep it back still longer. I have some stand 

 ards out nine years, and dwarfs six, that have never borne 

 a fruit, and I guess I know what I am about. They have 

 blossomed profusely, and some of them set fruit but I 

 have pulled them off, though it went very much against 

 the grain. 



When they come into bearing, after such delay, there is 

 great satisfaction in looking at the fruit, some in eating it, 

 and more still in giving it away. You see, in growing a 

 handsome fruit, perfect after its kind, a man enters into 

 co-partnership with nature. He helps nature to do some 

 thing which would be impossible without him, and nature 

 helps him. The joint product is as much ah honor to man 

 as it is to nature. A basket of fine pears glorifies a gar- 



