2510 



PEAR 



PEAR 



tory results in a variety of soils, it is found to succeed 

 most perfectly in a strong loam, of moderate depth, 

 overlying a porous subsoil. Soils which are liable to be 

 wet during any considerable portion of the growing 

 season are unfit for this purpose, unless deeply and 

 thoroughly underdrained; while even then they are 

 quite liable not to prove fully satisfactory. A few 



2812. A pear plantation. 



varieties are found to be moderately successful on 

 sandy soils, but for general planting such soils should 

 be avoided. 



Manures. 



The liability of the pear tree, in this climate, to the 

 attacks of blight is thought to be increased by excessive 

 growth. It is, therefore, desirable that the annual 

 growth be completed, and ripened at as early a date 

 as practicable; and the more so since the liability to 

 blight apparently exists only while growth is in actual 

 progress. Stable and other nitrogenous manures 

 should, for this reason, be applied in moderate quan- 

 tities, in autumn, after the liability to excite renewed 

 growth shall be past. Potash, lime, and phosphorus, 

 which enter more or less largely into the composition 

 of both tree and fruit, and which rarely exist in excess 

 in the soil, may be profitably applied in either autumn 

 or spring. Salt may also be profitably applied to the 

 comparatively dry soils recommended for the pear, but 

 with care not to apply in excess. One or even two 

 quarts may be safely applied to each tree, before the 

 commencement of growth in the spring, if well dis- 

 tributed upon the surface over a space of at least 6 

 or 8 feet in diameter, and left to be carried gradually 

 into the soil by dew and rain. It is believed to possess 

 little, if any, manurial value; but to act rather as a 

 conservator of moisture, and probably also as a repel- 

 lent of insects. Coarse mulch may be placed about the 

 trees, covering the soil as far out as the roots extend, 

 for the purpose of keeping the earth cool, and also to 

 check evaporation from the soil; but this should not be 

 done as a substitute for cultivation; and the soil 

 beneath the mulch should be kept well pulverized. 



Propagation. 



(a) By seedlings: Seeds, when to be planted for 

 the origination of new varieties, should be selected from 

 well-grown and fully matured fruits, of such varieties 

 as possess in a high degree the qualities sought to be 

 reproduced or improved, since a variety in which a 

 characteristic is strongly developed and persistently 

 manifested is the more likely to transmit such peculi- 

 arity to its offspring. Seeds resulting from known or 

 artificial cross-fertilization, and therefore of known 

 and selected parentage on both sides, offer increased 

 probability of valuable results. Seeds intended for the 

 origination of new varieties should be planted very 

 thinly in strong, rich, deeply prepared soil, in a single 

 row, and covered with not more than an inch of earth, 

 so that the young plants shall have ample space for 

 development. 



Seeds intended for the growing of stocks for nursery 



purposes should be collected from varieties in which 

 the seeds are plump and well developed, as well as 

 from healthy, vigorous trees. American nurserymen 

 obtain pear seeds mostly from Europe. Seeds intended 

 for nursery stocks are usually planted in broad, shallow 

 drills. In our American climate the foliage and unri- 

 pened wood of seedling pears is very liable to be attacked 

 during midsummer by leaf-blight or 

 mildew, which prematurely arrests 

 their growth. For this reason Euro- 

 pean stocks are generally preferred 

 fc, *y s .. by nurserymen. This attack of mildew 



may often be partially or wholly- 

 avoided by planting in virgin soil 

 remote from other cultivated grounds. 

 Pear seedlings form a very long tap- 

 root during their first year, with few, 

 if any, side-roots. For this reason they 

 are taken up preferably in autumn, 

 and the tap-roots shortened to 6 or 8 

 inches, when they may be replanted 

 in nursery rows, and earthed up, or 

 otherwise protected from heaving, or 

 other injury during winter; or, preferably, they may 

 be heeled-in, in a frost-proof cellar, and planted in 

 spring, to be budded during the ensuing summer or 

 left to become more fully established for budding a 

 year later. 



Seedlings intended for fruiting are usually trans- 

 planted in rows, about 8 feet apart each way, with the 

 expectation that many will be found worthless, and 

 either removed or destroyed. Seedling pears usually 

 require to be fruited several years before their charac- 

 teristics become fully developed. This generally recog- 

 nized fact may be taken as a warning that the occa- 

 sional effort to hasten the puberty of a seedling by 

 fruiting a cion from it upon a bearing tree of different 

 variety cannot be trusted to indicate the ultimate char- 

 acter of the fruit of the yet incipient variety, since it 

 is impossible to foresee to what extent such transfer 

 may interfere with the occult formative processes 

 through which its ultimate qualities would have been 

 developed. 



(6) By budding: Seedlings of one or two years' 

 growth, intended for standard trees, are usually planted 

 from 6 to 10 inches apart in the nursery row; for the 

 reason that space, as well as cultivation, must be econo- 

 mized to correspond with prices, although it is impos- 

 sible to grow trees of good form and properly branched 

 of the size and age demanded by most planters when 

 thus closely planted. Trees thus closely planted should 



2813. Ladders used in picking pears. 



be removed, or at least thinned, after haying made one 

 year's growth from the bud; while trees intended to be 

 grown two or more years in the nursery row, and prop- 

 erly branched, should be given twice or even three times 

 the space mentioned. 



The budding of pear stocks may be done during July 

 and August if they continue in a growing condition, 



