212 PEAK. 



ance. The pear-tree requires but little pruning. In exten- 

 sive orchards in warm latitudes, the pear-tree is sometimes 

 planted thirty feet distant each way ; in fruit gardens, where 

 the heads are occasionally pruned, twenty feet is often con- 

 sidered sufficient. Pear-trees whose first vigor has gone by 

 require every autumn a moderate top-dressing of manure, 

 instead of violent enriching, which induces disease. 



The pear is attacked by an insect, Scolytus pyri, whose rav- 

 ages produce the disease called the insect blight ; the leaves 

 become dry and brownish black, and the wood becomes dry 

 and hard. Remedy : Cut off the diseased branches as soon 

 as the disease is noticed, some inches below the withered, 

 blighted symptoms of disease, and burn the branches. 



THE FROZEN-SAP BLIGHT. 



This is a more serious disease than the former, the dis- 

 eased sap spreading infection over the whole tree. It is in- 

 duced generally in soils that are over-rich, and force second 

 growths in the same season, whose wood is unripened for 

 winter ; varieties of the pear which mature early are not so 

 liable to feel this disease as the later growing sorts. Culti- 

 vators have found that the means of warding off the visits of 

 this disease are to select a rich but well drained or dry soil, 

 to cultivate such varieties as mature their wood early, to 

 avoid severe summer pruning and prune in winter or early 

 spring, to reject cold soils and situations as not favorable for 

 speedy growth and maturing of wood, and to abstain from sum- 

 mer manuring, as calculated to over-stimulate and bring on a 

 second growth of branches. Cut off the affected parts some 

 distance below the diseased wood ; if it spreads, cut again. 

 Burn the branches as you cut them. 



Most varieties of pear have the fruit more highly flavored 

 by ripening it in the house ; gather it when it parts readily 

 from the stalk, and has assumed its double color ; spread the 



