PEAR 



PEAR 



2515 



due to their incieased tendency to early and excessive 

 productiveness when grown upon that stock, which, 

 owing to the very common unwillingness of the grower 

 to remove the excess of fruit, is allowed to consume the 

 material needed for wood-growth, and thus to occasion 

 exhaustion before the tree has gained a thorough hold 

 upon the soil. 



If, with any variety capable of forming a satisfactory 

 union with the quince, and with the tree planted in the 

 manner heretofore described, the entire crop of bloom 

 or incipient fruit of the first one, two, or even three 

 j'ears (dependent upon the vigor of the tree) were 

 removed, and if subsequent crops were carefully and 

 thoroughly thinned, it is at least highly probable that 

 permanent health and longevity would prove nearly or 

 quite as general with dwarfs as with standards, thus 

 permitting the more extensive growth of the pear in 

 greater variety in small or amateur plantations and in 

 limited grounds than is practicable with the use of 

 standards. T. T. LTON. 



The pear in the South. 



The following table from the. Thirteenth Census 

 shows the status of the pear industry in thirteen 

 southern states, 1910 (crop data 1909) : 



Number Production 



state, of trees, in bushels. 



Alabama 142,300 100,041 



Arkansas 221,764 37,547 



Florida 110,709 98,223 



Georgia 262,982 149,667 



Kentucky 337.355 251,536 



Louisiana 57 630 35,554 



Mississippi.. 118.536 101,288 



North Carolina 243,367 84,019 



Oklahoma 235 22 



South Carolina 105,251 65,680 



Tennessee 233,407 83,557 



Texas 558,478 110,967 



Virginia 457,177 74,486 



Total 2,849,191 1,192,587 



Throughout the whole South the average production 

 of pears to the tree is less than one-half bushel. Vir- 

 ginia and Kentucky have many pear trees in comparison 

 with the other southern states, but should hardly be 

 considered with the remainder of the South, as their 

 pears are produced mainly on the northern borders of 

 the states. Texas, on account of its area, has more pear 

 trees than any other southern state; and El Paso 

 County, the most western county, produces over 

 22,000 bushels. Conditions existing in this region are 

 not at all comparable with the other pear sections in 

 the South. 



It can hardly be said that pears are well adapted to 

 southern conditions, although in certain sections, 

 particularly in the mountains, it is possible to produce 

 fruits of good quality; but on account of the blight the 

 industry has never attained importance. At one time, 

 the late P. J. Berckmans, of Augusta, Georgia, had 600 

 different pears under test in his nursery, 500 of them 

 being named varieties. Berckmans says that of the 

 600, those of any worth in the South would not exceed 

 twelve in number, and that the great commercial 

 varieties were the LeConte, Garber, and Kieffer, 

 although Bulletin No. 126 of the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry shows seventy-seven varieties of pears that 

 have originated in the thirteen southern states. 



The history of the southern pear industry begins 

 with the introduction of the LeConte into ThomasvUle, 

 Georgia, in the early seventies of the last century by 

 L. L. Varnadoe. The original cutting carried into 

 Thomas County came from Liberty County, Georgia. 

 This pear was planted extensively around Thomasville, 

 being taken from there into northern Florida, southern 

 Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. The 

 propagation was mainly by cuttings, and in the early 



days of the industry $1 apiece was often paid for trees. 

 At one time it was conservatively stated that there 

 were at least 200,000 trees in Thomas County. Great 

 prices were received for the product, the growers in 

 those days netting from $3 to $7 a barrel. There are 

 reports from H. H. Sanford, one of the early growers 

 of this fruit, of LeConte trees producing thirty bushels 

 or more. The growing of this pear, like many other 

 horticultural industries in the South, was along exten- 

 sive rather than intensive lines. The growers thought 

 that they did not need to till or to fertilize their lands 

 and that they could plant these wonderful trees and 

 reap a harvest of dollars, and for a time it seemed as if 

 this were so; then the blight appeared. The "die- 

 back," as it was originally called, began, and between 

 1890 and 1895 the industry was in a fair way to suc- 

 cumb. No systematic efforts were made to combat 

 this disease, except by introduction of the Kieffer, 

 which was considered at that time resistant, and which 

 was largely planted in the pear sections of the South. 



Because of the blight and lack of care, with no 

 systematized methods of marketing, the pear industry 

 of the southern states fell to a low ebb. For the past 

 several years no commercial orchards have been set, 

 and a great number of the trees that were planted in 

 this early period are either dead or cut down; therefore 

 the production of the hybrid pears in the South is not 

 only at a standstill, but is at this time declining. 



The management of these orchards, even while the 

 industry was at its height, was very crude. It is 

 1 reported on good authority that 95 per cent of the pear 

 plantings in the southern pear sections were most seri- 

 ously neglected. Some orchards were cropped, to the 

 detriment of the land; others so badly neglected that 

 young pine trees contended with the pears for space; 

 consequently the fruits were not of the best quality. 

 The growers who followed approved methods of tillage 

 and fertilizing received a serious set-back when the 

 blight appeared, as these plantings seemed to be more 

 susceptible to this disease. In time a balance was 



2819. Box of fancy pears; each fruit wrapped in paper. 



reached, and it is now considered good practice to run 

 the orchards in sod and every third year to give a light 



E lowing, the application of fertilizers being determined 

 y the growth of the tree. Spraying was little practised 

 in the older orchards. The growers who are still pro- 

 ducing pears now find the use of a spray-pump advisa- 

 ble. Harvesting during the height of the pear industry 

 in south Georgia was aptly described by the Thomas- 

 ville "Times Enterprise:" "The annual slaughter of 

 the LeConte pears has commenced. The trees are full 

 of little gamins, picking a few, flailing some and shaking 

 off the remainder. All good, bad, and bruised are 

 dumped into barrels and rushed to market." It is 

 unfortunately true that many of these fruits were 

 gathered in this way. There were growers who hand- 

 picked their product, carefully packing it into ven- 

 tilated barrels. These, however, were the smaller 



