Pip Fruits: Pears 



93 



is well known that in some seasons not one -half of this amount is 

 obtained. The only item in the expenditure then saved is that of picking 

 and marketing, but these in no way compensate for the poverty of the 

 crop. On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that a properly culti- 

 vated Pear garden, with 160 well-established trees, ought to yield more 

 than an average of 2 bus. per tree. Where there are 300 and 400 trees 

 to the acre it is impossible to expect 

 anything but poor crops, and fruit per- 

 haps badly diseased into the bargain. 



Pears on Walls. In many market 

 gardens there are either walls or fences 

 that may be, and are, utilized for the 

 cultivation of some of the choicer or 

 more tender varieties of Pears. The 

 trees may be trained on the walls in 

 various ways, either as single oblique 

 cordons or as double oblique cordons 

 (fig. 350); in the forms of single or 

 double columns (fig. 351), shapes useful 

 for the butt end of walls; or they may 

 have the branches trained horizontally, 

 or radiating like a fan. 



Fig. 350. Double Oblique Cordons 



Columnar Double Coruui. 



Fig. 351 



Whichever method is adopted means more expense in cultivating than 

 trees grown as bushes, half-standards, pyramids, or standards. The extra 

 expense will be entailed in tying, nailing, summer pruning and pinching, 

 and also in winter pruning, and the only set-off against this expense 

 would be in having particularly fine fruits that would realize something 

 like one-half or a quarter of the big prices at which they are retailed 

 at the west-end shops. 



In market gardens sufficient attention is not given to the proper 

 pruning of fruit trees on walls. The men employed are usually unskilled 

 in the art of gardening, and they often know little or nothing as to the 



