ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE. 541 



where in soils with regularly-stirred sur- 

 faces will be seen innumerable flowers 

 with little fruit, and with those which do 

 set great numbers are found afterwards 

 upon the ground, having fallen off from 

 no other cause than sheer inability in the 

 weakened vital principle to maintain 

 them. Leaf-blight and innumerable dis- 

 eases follow exceedingly weakened vitali- 

 ty ; and though fire-blight, cracking, and 

 other diseases are the means of destruc- 

 tion to many thousands of bushels of 

 pears annually, debility destroys its tens 

 of thousands. 



At the discussion of the Lake Shore 

 Horticultural Association, Mr. E. P. 

 Powell, of Adrian, Michigan, a successful 

 cultivator of pears, recommended mulch- 

 ing pear trees, as a preventive of blight, 

 and as advantageous in other respects. 

 He sometimes uses long manure, though 

 preferring only grass. His soil is a clay 

 underdrained. A few years after plant- 

 ing his orchard he ceases plowing the 

 land, and simply cuts the grass and 

 spreads it about the trees. No strength 

 is taken from the land except what is 

 gathered in the fruit, and this is replaced 

 four-fold in mulching. No stimulus is 

 given to hasten the growth of the trees, 

 and the wood is consequently strong, 

 compact, and ripe each year. 



Mr. H. Pennoyer, another successful 

 cultivator, sets his trees without manure 

 or anything to enrich the soil; lets the 

 grass grow around the trees; uses the 

 knife freely, so as to bring the tree into 

 proper shape and proportion. Pear trees, 

 he holds, must not be stimulated; high 

 manuring forces an unnatural growth, 

 winter kills the soft wood, and blight 

 finally finishes the tree. 



PEAR, Slugs in. — The pear slug, a 

 brownish-green, slimy slug, feeding upon 

 the leaves of the pear tree, deposits its 

 eggs singly in June, in incisions made by 

 the piercer of the female under the skin of 

 the leaf. The larvae, hatching, eat the 

 substance of the leaf, leaving the veins 

 and under-skin untouched. The pupa is 

 formed in oblong oval cavities under 

 ground. The insect appears in about 

 fifteen days after the slug has gone into 

 the ground, in June and August, and lays 

 its eggs for the second crop, which go in- 

 to the ground in September and October, 

 and remain until the following spring, 



when the perfect flies come out to lay 

 their eggs on the foliage. Mr. Saunders, 

 of Canada, states that this insect is readily 

 destroyed by dusting the tree with air- 

 slacked lime. Coal oil will injure the 

 trees, and road dust is of little value when 

 dusted over the trees. 



PEPPER, Culture of.— The plants are 

 always propagated from seed. Sow in a 

 hot bed, early in April, in shallow drills 

 six inches apart, and transplant to the 

 open ground, when summer weather has 

 commenced. The plants should be set 

 in warm mellow soil, in rows sixteen 

 inches apart, and about the same distance 

 apart in the rows. When all danger 

 from frost is past, and the soil is warm 

 and settled, sow the seeds in the open 

 ground, in drills three-fourths of an inch 

 deep, and fourteen inches apart; and, 

 while growing, thin out the plants to tea 

 inches apart in the rows. 



PLANTS, To Banish Red Spider from.— 

 Cut off the infected leaf. The leaf once 

 attacked soon decays and falls off, but in 

 the meantime the animals remove to an- 

 other, and the leaf from the moment of 

 attack, seems to cease to perform its 

 office ; but persevere in the amputation^ 

 and the plants become healthy. 



PEAR ORCHARDS, Sites, and Shelter 

 of. — Low situations should be avoided on 

 account of the greater extremes of tem- 

 perature prevalent in valleys than in 

 places of moderate elevation, and the 

 consequent probability of injury from late 

 spring and early winter frosts. A sloping 

 hill-side, contiguous to a well-defined val- 

 ley, forms the choicest orchard site, not 

 only for pears, but for other fruits as well. 

 To insure the greatest advantage from 

 position, the trees should not be planted 

 lower than within fifty feet of upright ele- 

 vation from the lowest point in the valley. 

 The cold air will then settle during the 

 night, in a stratum below the trees, and 

 the warm air accumulated in the lower 

 ground during the day will be pressed up 

 to the higher altitude occupied by the 

 orchard, and thus afford considerable pro- 

 tection in cold nights. 



The obvious necessity of shelter to pear 

 orchards has led, in some instances, to the 

 mistake of selecting low grounds for their 

 apparently well protected position, which, 

 for the reasons given above, are the worst 

 possible localities. Contrasted with val- 



