54 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL. SOCIETY. [1898. 



and especially in the culture of pears, the particular object of 

 our talk today. 



To succeed in pear culture, I think you will agree with me, 

 one should have a natural taste for it. He should think more 

 of the tree than of what grows on it. He should be more inter- 

 ested in trimming and thinning the flower and fruit than he 

 should in eating the fruit after it is matured ; and in addition to 

 this, if he comes of an ancestry of similar tastes, so much the 

 better. In my case, my earliest boyhood recollection of my 

 ftither, who was even then a member, and an interested member, 

 of this Society, was seeing him with his hired man selecting, 

 sorting, and setting out his pear trees ; and I can remember even 

 then that the names of Samuel H. Colton, John Milton Earle, D. 

 Waldo Lincoln, Jaques and others, were household words. 

 What they said about this pear, and what they said about that 

 pear and that tree was authority to be launched at anyone who 

 dared to doubt or differ. On this home-place nearly or quite 

 one hundred varieties of pears were grown, which, as a boy, I 

 had full freedom to range, cull, and sample, and educate my 

 taste for future life. 



In cultivating pears, I think the first point that we have to 

 consider is that of soil. Now there are those who hold that the 

 only soil to raise pears on is heavy black clay soil. Downing, 

 our authority on fruit, says a rich, mellow loam, but does not 

 qualify that by saying whether his loam is clayey or sandy ; but 

 I know when I began my last cultivation of pears, which was in 

 this city, that my soil ranged from sand to gravel, and some of 

 the gravel was pretty coarse, and a pear expert claimed that 

 while I might be able to get some pears that would do to eat in 

 my family, I never would be able to produce them in any 

 number which would be fit to exhibit in competition in the halls 

 of this Society. To those who have soil of that nature, sandy 

 or gravelly loam, I would say they need not be discouraged, 

 and that with intelligent cultivation and plenty of fertilization, 

 that soil can be made to produce and compete with any soil, not 

 only so far as looks and appearance is concerned, but I do be- 

 lieve, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the flavor of all fruits and 



