78 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



from seeds of small pears were puny and stinted ; and that a 

 decided difference in the growth of the trees could be distinctly 

 seen during the whole time they were in the nursery. 



The seed-bed for pears should be in a rich soil, which should 

 be trenched to the depth of fourteen to eighteen inches, and the 

 sub-soil well mixed with rich compost. The seed should be 

 sowed in the autumn, in wide drills from two to three feet apart, 

 to allow the passage of the cultivator between them. The next 

 summer, the young trees should be thinned out, so that they 

 shall not stand nearer than two to three inches to each other. 

 The ensuing autumn, the trees should be covered with coarse 

 stable manure, six inches deep, or with evergreen boughs. 

 This covering should remain till the last of April or first of 

 May. Young trees are not injured, as is sometimes supposed, 

 by severe cold in winter, but by the frequent freezing and thaw- 

 ing of the ground, in an early spring. They are sometimes, 

 when not protected, thrown entirely out of the ground in the 

 spring, even when the tap-roots are as long or longer than the 

 tree itself, and when thrown out in this manner, the slightest 

 frost is fatal .to them. A. W. Dodge, of Hamilton, reared a nur- 

 sery of young pear trees with great success, several years since, 

 without protecting them in any manner the first winter. But I 

 am inclined to believe that their preservation was to be attrib- 

 uted to the propitious season, rather than to their favorable loca- 

 tion. A friend of mine some four years since, planted a seed- 

 bed in a most favorable situation, and left the trees without any 

 protection the first winter. The result was, that they were all 

 thrown out of the ground and killed by the action of the frost 

 in the spring. The reason that pear trees are thrown out by 

 the frost more easily than any others is, that the first year they 

 have no lateral roots to resist the action of the frost. They 

 have but one straight tap-root. The apple and other fruit trees 

 throw out lateral roots the first year, which fasten the trees to 

 the soil so that they cannot be thrown out by the frost. The 

 second year, the trees will need no protection, as by that time 

 they throw out lateral roots. The second spring, the trees 

 should be transplanted from the seed-bed and set out in rows, in 

 the nursery. If the soil is good, they should be budded during 



