THE PEAR 321 



writers on fruit culture. Any nurseryman of experience knows that while 

 lie may graft a large block of various kinds of apples on the same lot of seed- 

 ling crabs, each variety will form from the piece of crab root its own peculiar 

 root system. Some of the trees will be easy to dig while others will form a 

 root system which makes them harder to lift. What has made this difference ? 

 Not the stock, for the stocks are all the same, but the top which was grafted 

 on it has made the root system peculiar to the variety. No matter what the 

 stock used in working a tree, the subsequent growth will be that of the top, 

 whatever that may be; for all elaboration of material for growth is done by 

 the leaves, and partakes of the nature of the plant from which the leaves come. 

 The quince stock, with roots feeding in a more limited space than the pear 

 roots, will for a time check the rapid growth of the pear and throw it into 

 fruiting earlier. 



But of late years so many varieties of pears have been introduced which 

 bear at a comparatively early age on the pear stock, that less attention is now 

 paid to dwarf trees on the quince. The introduction of hybrids with the 

 Chinese sand pear has given an impetus to pear culture in the South, where 

 the old varieties are seldom a success ; and while the Kieffer and Leconte are 

 not of the highest excellence, they flourish and give large crops in sections 

 of the country where no other pears can be grown, and form the starting 

 point for improved varieties adapted to Southern conditions. Only a few 

 days ago we, as Judge, examined a seedling pear from the Kieffer which 

 marks a real advance. It is supposed that the Kieffer is a seedling from the 

 Bartlett crossed with the Chinese sand pear, and this seedling seems to give 

 further evidence that this is true, for while it has the general shape and ap- 

 pearance of the Kieffer, it has a brilliant red cheek, and one with his eyes shut 

 would pronounce it a Bartlett. When seedlings of such excellence can be 

 produced from Kieffer there is a wide field for the workers in the South, in 

 improving the pear that will succeed there. 



While this book is not intended to treat of the fungus diseases of fruits 

 and other plants, but rather on their growth and feeding, we cannot refrain 

 from saying here a few words in regard to the disease which, so far, has baffled 

 fruit growers in preventing it. This is the fire blight of the pear, which 

 also at times attacks apples and quinces, but hardly to the same extent that it 

 does the pear. All sorts of odd notions have prevailed among intelligent 

 growers as to the cause of pear blight, and some still have a notion that it is 

 caused by frozen sap in winter. But the investigations of scientists have 

 fully demonstrated that the blight is caused by one of those microscopic forms 

 of plant life known as bacteria, which gets into the shoot in the early spring, 

 probably by means of the bees which visit the blossoms. As these grow down- 



