G4 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



PEAR CULTURE. 

 Bv H. S. Dawes. Harrison. 



I am aware that my subject is a dry one to most people, from the 

 fact that so few in our State are interested and engaged in the cul- 

 tivation of pears, I am also aware that the object of this meeting 

 and Society is to interest, and extend its usefulness to those not 

 engaged in the profitable and delightful occupation of fruit growing. 

 I regret ray inability to present the subject to you in its true merit*, 

 and to bring out anything new or interesting, for I find myself in 

 the condition something as the good old lady was when engaged in 

 making her soap, and one of her neighbors called in and asked her 

 how she did it, replied that she could not tell how she made it, but 

 it come by observation, and all I can tell you about pear culture is 

 what I have observed and learned since I have been in the business. 

 Give me a moist, thoroughly under-drained soil. I don't care whether 

 it is cla}', loam, gravelly or sandy, located on a fair elevation, and 

 you can raise pears just as well hire in Maine as you can anywhere 

 in New England. 



If you wish to engage in the business, I should select an acre, 

 more or less, according to your circumstances, of such soil and loca- 

 tion as I have described, and prepare it as follows : I should plow 

 it as dtep as you can. by going twice in the same furrow, and turn 

 under a heavy coat of dressing. After you get it plowed, spread on 

 another good coat of well decomposed barnyard manure, to make it 

 rich enough to bear good corn without any fertilizer in the hill, and 

 plant it to corn or potatoes the first season. After the crop is har- 

 vested in the fall, plow in another coat of barnyard dressing, also 

 plow again the following spring, and if you give it another coat it 

 won't hurt it. Harrow it over five or six times after each plowing, 

 and cart off the rocks and >ther debris. It is no small job to pre- 

 pare an acre suitable to grow pears, especially if the soil is rock3', 

 but it does not pay to half do it. After you have given your ground 

 the finishing touch with the smoothing harrow, it is all ready to la}' 

 out, and how shall it be done? That depends on the kind of trees 

 you intend to plant. If you feel an interest in your posterity, and 

 wish to benefit your heirs, I should set standard trees, twenty feet 

 apart each way. But if you want to get the fruits of your own 



