PEAR 



PEAR 



crop for 1916 was worth $56,000,000, as com- 

 pared with $18,272,000 for 1909. This stimula- 

 tion of the industry was partly the result of the 

 great war in Europe, which cut off imports of 

 both the nuts and the oil. Another factor was 

 the scarcity and high price of cotton seed. Many 



.,, North 

 'Carolina 

 5981 



Florida 

 2315 



Virginia 

 428A 



Georaia 

 Z570 



Alabama 

 1574 



Texas 

 I0"75 



Figures Represent Thousands of Bushels 



PEANUTS GROWN IN A YEAR 

 The chart represents average number of bush- 

 els for a period of five years prior to 1916. Texas 

 will soon advance near to the head of the list, 

 with Oklahoma closely following. 



cottonseed-oil manufacturers in the South be- 

 gan using their equipment to make peanut oil, 

 and thousands of acres, especially in the terri- 

 tory infested with the cotton-boll weevil, were 

 given over to peanut culture. W.F.R. 



Consult Roper's The Peanut and Its Culture; 

 Beattie's "The Peanut," in United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletin 431. 



PEAR, pair, a favorite orchard fruit belong- 

 ing to the rose family, which includes also the 

 apple, peach, plum and cherry. Of these it is 

 most like the apple in structure, having a core 

 and seeds in the center instead of a pit. Pears, 

 however, are juicier than apples and, generally 

 speaking, more mellow in taste. A typical pear 

 is irregularly cone shaped, not round, but there 

 are apples which look like pears and pears which 

 look like apples. A real distinction is the pres- 

 ence, in the tissue of the pear, of cells contain- 

 ing a hard, woody substance. This is why the 

 pulp of a pear does not feel so smooth, when 

 eaten, as that of an apple. 



Production. The pear tree grows quite gen- 

 erally throughout the temperate regions, but 

 its cultivation has been attended with best re- 

 sults in France and the United States. In the 

 latter country, the annual yield is between 

 8,000,000 and 9,000,000 bushels, valued at about 

 $8,000,000, and the fruit ranks fourth in impor- 

 tance (among orchard fruits), following apples, 

 peaches and plums. The most important areas 

 of production are the Northeastern states, from 



Nrw England to the Great Lakes; and the Pa- 

 cific coast states. According to the Thirteenth 

 Census, California, New York, Michigan and 

 New Jersey lead in amount of crop, but the 

 fruit is raised to a greater or less extent in 

 every state in the Union. In Canada the chief 

 pear centers are in Ontario and Quebec. In 

 the Burlington district in Ontario, about 1,000,- 

 000 baskets are produced a year. Many Cana- 

 dian pear growers are developing the fruit for 

 export to Great Britain. 



Culture, Favorites among the many com- 

 mercial varieties developed by American horti- 

 culturists are the Bartlett, the Anjou, Le Conte 

 and the Kieffer. The last two are the result of 

 crossing two species of the eastern hemisphere, 

 the native European pear and the Chinese pear, 

 a small, gritty fruit that is not good to eat un- 

 less cooked. Two varieties of trees are culti- 

 vated in orchards the standard and the dwarf. 

 Both are propagated by budding on stock 

 grown from seeds (see Bud Grafting in the arti- 

 cle GRAFTING), but dwarf varieties are obtained 

 by using the quince as stock. These latter 

 grow from twelve to fifteen feet in height and 

 bear earlier than standard varieties, often pro- 

 ducing a fruit superior in size and flavor. Trees 

 of standard varieties should be planted in well- 

 drained, clayey loam, but the dwarfs will thrive 

 in a lighter soil. The former are set from 

 eighteen to twenty-five feet apart each way, 

 and the latter, from ten to sixteen. Pear trees, 



THE PEAR 



in general appearance, resemble apple trees, 

 though they are not so rugged; they bear long, 

 oval leaves and creamy-white blossoms. The 

 fruits are picked before they are fully ripe and 

 stored in cool rooms to mature, or packed in 

 barrels or boxes for shipment. They develop 

 a better flavor and are less likely to decay than 

 if allowed to ripen on the trees. 



Two diseases are especially dreaded by pear 

 growers leaf spot, a fungous growth that at- 

 tacks leaves, fruit and young twigs; and pear 

 or fire blight, a bacterial disease that works 

 within the plant. Bordeaux mixture (see sub- 

 head under INSECTICIDES AND FUNGICIDES) is an 



