168 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



It is rare to see a good, healthy, thrifty Bartlctt pear tree, 

 after it has borne a few years ; the reason for this is, its ten- 

 dency to over-bearing, and being allowed to mature all the fruit 

 that nature does not cause to drop off. 



The farmers yearly complain that their apples are all " drop- 

 ping off." Were it not for this, one of nature's laws, our apple 

 trees would have died some years ago from over-bearing ; gen- 

 erally, they do not drop enough ; consequently many trees have 

 been injured by breaking ; but the apple does not lose its flavor 

 by over-bearing so much as the pear. 



In conclusion, I repeat, to obtain good crops of pears, enrich 

 the soil, head in the trees, and especially thin out the fruit. 

 Andrew Wellington, for the Commillee, 



Statement of John Cumming's, Jr. 



The fruit I offer for • your premiums to-day, was grown on 

 trees planted ten years since. The land on which they were 

 planted had previously been used a long time for a cow pasture. 

 When I commenced work upon it, it was mostly overgrown with 

 bushes, and was very rough and very stony — so much so, that 

 it seemed to me that the only way to subdue it was to trench it, 

 and bury the stones in the low parts ; and this I accordingly 

 did, greatly improving the land thereby. 



At first, I gave the land only an ordinary dressing, and planted 

 it as soon as it was prepared with standard trees twenty feet apart, 

 fillingbetween,each way, with dwarfs, or pears on quince stocks. 

 I planted in the orchard (about two acres) two hundred stand- 

 ard and six hundred dwarf trees. 



For the first three or four years I planted the land with cherry 

 and apple trees, for a nursery, and by so doing, very much 

 injured the growth of my pear trees. In fact, after about the 

 second year, they did very badly, until the nursery trees were 

 all removed, I then used dressing more freely, and planted it 

 less with other crops. 



My experience with this orchard fully convinces me that, if 

 Middlesex farmers would raise pears, any thing like the best 

 specimens shown at our annual exhibition, it can only be done 

 by a liberal dressing and clean culture. If they would have an 

 orchard at all satisfactory, the pear crop and no other, must be 

 our aim. I do not mean that no other crop can be raised on 



