HORTICULTURE 209 



States also packs his fruit in wholesale methods, using barrels or 

 boxes, and ships it in car lots, or sometimes even in train lots, to 

 Northern cities. On the other hand, the Eastern gardener may 

 ripen up a few bushels in his house and deliver them direct to his 

 retail or wholesale customers. Large quantities of pears are con- 

 sumed by the canneries, both on the Pacific coast and in the Eastern 

 States. The large crop of Kieffers, which is now getting to be such 

 an important factor in the pear market of Eastern cities during the 

 autumn months, is very largely taken up by the canneries, espe- 

 cially in Baltimore, and the trade in canned Kieffer pears is very 

 rapidly increasing. For the canning trade the pears are almost al- 

 ways shipped in baskets of the type of the Maryland and Delaware 

 peach basket, and the baskets are generally returned to the grower 

 to be used over and over again. The price paid is usually so low that 

 the cost of the baskets is an important item if they are not returned. 

 The price is often as low as 15 to 20 cents a half-bushel basket, and 

 25 to 30 cents is considered a good price. At this price Kieffer pear 

 growing is immensely profitable. This can be readily understood 

 when the yield is often more than 1,000 baskets per acre. 



One important point for the inexperience pear grower to deter- 

 mine is the exact time for picking the fruit. The pear is quite ex- 

 ceptional as compared with the ordinary orchard fruits in that it is 

 much better if picked from the tree before it is ripe, and then ri- 

 pened up either closely packed in a box or stored in large quantities 

 in a tight room. Very few rears are at their best if allowed to ripen 

 on the tree. As choice a pear as Clapps Favorite becomes dry and 

 mushy at the core and very poor in quality if allowed to hang on 

 the tree, while the same fruit, picked when firm and hard, but full 

 grown, and ripened indoors, will be of an even consistency, juicy 

 and delicious. During the last few days that the fruit hangs on 

 the tree the development of the hard, woody kernels, the so-called 

 stone cells of the pear, proceeds rapidly. Picking before the fruit is 

 ripe seems to partly head off the development of these stone cells, and 

 the subsequent ripening processes still further soften and disintegrate 

 them. Among the pears of medium and poorer quality, such as the 

 Duchess, Kieffer, etc., the ripening process may almost be said to 

 make the fruit edible, at least make it fit for a dessert fruit. Kieffers 

 allowed to hang on the tree until they are full colored and ready 

 to drop have the maximum amount of stone cells ; in fact the por- 

 tion surrounding the core becomes almost a mass of woody matter 

 under these circumstances. If, on the other hand, the fruit is 

 picked when it first attains full size, or even a little before, and is 

 ripened in bulk and in the dark, it will color up a beautiful delicate 

 yellow, frequently with a red blush, and soften evenly throughout, 

 making a fairly good pear to eat out of the hand and a most ex- 

 cellent canning and cooking fruit. Pears allowed to hang too long 

 on the trees when they are apparently ripe and soft will be found 

 to have merely a shell, about half an inch thick, of ripened pulp 

 and a large central portion either too hard to eat or filled too com- 

 pactly with stone cells. 



