CHAPTER XLV. 

 THE PEAR. 



The climate and soils of the Atlantic coast of the United States, from 

 Boston to Cape Hatteras, are peculiarly adapted to the successful culture of the 

 pear, and the section of this range best adapted to pears is that known as the 

 Delaware and Maryland Peninsula. In this favored region the pear attains 

 a size and quality unknown in most other sections. We once showed pears 

 from the eastern side of the Chesapeake Bay, at an exhibition in Baltimore, 

 in competition with the best Boston growers, and our pears of the same varie- 

 ties were so far superior to the Boston pears that the Boston men did not 

 recognize the varieties. 



But the pear has a wide range over the country where it will succeed very 

 well. It likes a deep and fertile clayey loam, and during its early growth 

 should have about the same treatment as to feeding that we would give the 

 apple. Much attention was formerly given to the cultivation of the pear on 

 the Angers quince stock, in order to produce a dwarf and early fruiting habit, 

 as the small range of the quince roots would for a while, check the naturally 

 rapid growth of the pear, and thus throwing it into the making of fruit spurs 

 would still further check the rapid growth of the tree and continue it in a 

 fruitful condition. Some varieties on the quince did not fruit excessively 

 and finally developed into standard trees, and then unobservant men said that 

 the trees had formed roots from the pear stem. The fact is that when we put 

 a pear on a quince root, and allow no further shoots of quince to grow, all the 

 subsequent growth of roots is pear and not quince, for the leaves of a tree 

 form all the material for growth, and pear* leaves form food for pear growth 

 for limbs and roots alike. Hence all subsequent growth of the tree is pear 

 overlaying and extending from the old quince roots, and if the growth of the 

 tree is not retarded by excessive fruit bearing, it will finally develop into a 

 standard tree, and not a root can be found directly proceeding from the 

 pear stem. 



This fact in vegetable physiology has been strangely overlooked by all 



(320) 



