THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 85 



now surpass Kieffer in number of trees. Clapp Favorite, Beurre d' Anjou, 

 Beurre Bosc, Beurre Clairgeau, Duchesse d' Angouleme, Howell, Lawrence, 

 Sheldon, Vermont Beauty, and Winter Nelis are all planted more or less 

 in commercial orchards, and are the favorites for home use. All of these 

 varieties are susceptible to blight, are a little too tender to cold, and have 

 other faults of tree and fruit, so that pear-growers in New York anxiously 

 look forward to better varieties. It is hardly too much to say that pear- 

 growing can never become a great industry in New York until better varieties 

 take the place of the unreliable sorts that must be planted now. 



To some extent, man-governed agencies determine where pears may 

 be grown profitably if the planter is growing for the markets. Pears do 

 not keep long and are easily bruised, and transportation must not take 

 too great toll; therefore, handling facilities must be suitable, markets must 

 not be distant, and transportation must be cheap and efficient. But in 

 the culture of this fruit, natural agencies outrank those depending on man, 

 two of which determine very largely where pears are to be grown 

 commercially in both the country and the state. These two, climate and 

 soil, have been mentioned before, but must now be discussed somewhat in 

 detail. 



CLIMATE 



The ideal climate for a cultivated plant is one in which the plant 

 thrives as an escape from cultivation wholly independent of care 

 from man. The apple, cherry, plum, and peach are often found wild in 

 one or another part of America, but the pear almost never. The pear 

 does not naturally become inured to the American climate, and in the 

 orchard is not well acclimated even in the varieties which have originated 

 in the country. In particular, as a young tree and until well advanced 

 toward maturity, the pear shows the bad effects of maladjustment to 

 climate, but as an old tree it seems to be far less susceptible to the 

 extremes of climate to which fruit trees are subjected in most parts of 

 America. Both of the two chief constituents of climate, temperature and 

 rainfall, are determinants of regions and sites in pear-growing. 



Extremes in temperature, more particularly of cold, are the only 

 phases of temperature that pear-growers need consider in New York. 

 The pear is not nearly as hardy as the apple, and Bartlett, the foremost 

 variety in the State, is almost as tender to cold as the peach. The limits 

 of commercial pear-culture are set in this State by the winter climate. 

 The pear cannot be grown profitably where the temperature often falls 



