HORTICULTURE 207 



placed 16 by 16 or 20 by 20 feet apart, according to the form and 

 size of the varieties, (c) Pears bear paying crops younger than 

 apples. This quality, however, varies much with the different kinds. 



Pruning. Pears need more pruning than apples when young. 

 During the first few years after planting the central shoots that 

 usually seem to attract all the growth should be pinched or short- 

 ened, except the one central shoot, which should be preserved 

 through the life of the tree. Proper attention to this when trees 

 are young will develop a head that will need but little training when 

 the tree is mature. (U. S. E. S. B. 178.) 



Thinning the Fruit. It is a great mistake to allow pear trees to 

 overbear. When the fruit is about an inch in diameter the trees 

 should be gone over carefully and all the surplus pears, over and 

 above what the tree can mature properly, picked off. Each branch 

 should be examined, and, with the size of the mature fruit in mind, 

 the number reduced to the proper amount for that size of branch. 

 All imperfect, wormy, or distorted specimens should be picked off 

 first, and only those which are expected to make fancy fruit left 

 behind. Unfortunately, no general rule can be given to guide in 

 thinning pears. The rule of one fruit to 6 inches, which commonly 

 guides the peach grower in thinning peaches, can not be definitely 

 applied to pears. Experience is the only guide, and the grower 

 may expect to allow a few trees to overbear before he learns the 

 lesson of just how much to thin. Thinning not only improves the 

 quality of the fruit of the current season, but it places the tree in 

 better shape to bear the next year. As a rule, greater profits are 

 secured by regular annual crops than by heavy crops during occa- 

 sional years, for it commonly happens that such seasons are the 

 very ones when fruit is plentiful and cheap and the profit in han- 

 dling it very small. (Y. B. 1900.) 



Fruit. The fruit varies greatly in quality. Some varieties are 

 only valuable for cooking, and others are of finest dessert quality. 

 In color pears vary from a beautiful yellow with pink cheek to dark, 

 rough, deep-brown russet. In form they vary from globular through 

 a great variety of shapes to the typical pear shape. In season of 

 ripening they range from early summer to kinds that will keep in an 

 ordinary cellar until March. The fruit should be protected by 

 spraying, and should be picked when full grown even if very hard, 

 as it is improved by being ripened under cover. Some varieties that 

 water core badly on the trees are exempt from it when ripened under 

 cover. They are on the market as fresh fruit, dried, or canned, and 

 are used for making pear cider which is known as "perry." 



Varieties. The varieties selected should be such as are recom- 

 mended by the local horticultural society or'by the American Porno- 

 logical Society. Farmers' Bulletin No. (208, by the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, offers many suggestions". Care should be taken in 

 planting to see that the self-sterile varieties are mingled with those 

 that are self-fertile. (U. S. E. S. B. 178.) 



In considering the merits of varieties of pears that a grower 

 contemplates setting, several factors need to be taken into considera- 



