THE WONDERFUL BARTLETT 261 



kets are supplied with this variety about four months each season, viz., 

 July, August, September and October. While this pear is in the market, 

 any other variety to compete with it must sell at very low prices. 



Of course experienced pear growers, whose taste would soon cloy 

 with a continuous diet of Bartletts, and who know fully the superior 

 quality of other varieties which ripen soon after it, would dispute 

 the position taken by Mr. Reed, but for present California taste and 

 trade he is undoubtedly correct. As the canners and shippers and 

 local consumers all call for Bartletts, and as they usually sell at the 

 East for more than other varieties, the choice of location to secure 

 a Bartlett, either very early or very late, is the part of wisdom, for 

 either end of the season usually yields better prices than the middle. 

 The earliest Bartletts come from the interior valley sometimes as 

 early as the last week in June; the next, from the valleys adjacent 

 to the Bay of San Francisco ; the next, from the higher foothills of 

 the Sierra Nevada ; and the last, so far as present experience goes, 

 although some coast and mountain situations are quite late, reach 

 the market from the Vacaville district. It is an interesting fact 

 that this district, which has long been famous for marketing the 

 first early fruits, should also market very late ones. It is true, 

 however, that early fruits hasten to maturity and late fruits are 

 retarded. Late fruits push along until about midsummer, then stop 

 growing for a month or two during the hottest weather, and after- 

 wards proceed on their course and finish up well.* W. W. Smith, 

 of Vac& Valley, has picked Bartletts as late as November 19, but 

 that is unusually late. In years with heavy late spring rains the 

 Bartlett ripens earlier in the Vaca Valley than in ordinary seasons, 

 and when the fruit sells well in the East, the Bartletts are gathered 

 green and shipped all through the season, as their first growth 

 usually makes them large enough for this purpose. 



There is produced in some situations a "second crop" of Bart- 

 letts and of other varieties, which is of account when pears are 

 scarce and is sometimes dried with profit. For such fruit the bloom 

 appears upon the tips of the shoots of the current season's growth. 

 The fruit is sometimes coreless and has led to claims of "seedless 

 pears." Bartlett pears have actually been picked in the foothills 

 above Peatz in Butte County on February 25, 1905, and described 

 as "fine, delicious and ripe." This fact must be regarded as a token 

 of local climatic salubrity and not of economic or pomological 

 account. 



Bartletts can also be successfully held in storage for a time if 

 fitted for it. The experiments of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, conducted in Southern Oregon, show that the Bartlett 

 season can be extended from six to seven weeks by leaving the fruit 

 on the trees two weeks longer than is at present the practice and 

 by storing for four or five weeks at a temperature of 32 deg. or 34 

 deg. F. after the fruit has been precooled. 



Demonstration of the effect of high heat in retarding the ripening of pears has been 

 described by R. H. Taylor and E. L. Overholser in Monthly Bulletin California State Hor- 

 ticultural Commission for March, 1919. 



