60 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1898. 



When I have two bushels of pears on a tree, I pick off one 

 bushel, and those that are left are worth twice as much. There 

 are two ways of thinning a tree. If you love your tree, and if 

 you think more of the tree than of the fruit that grows on it, go 

 out and look up into the trees in the springtime, and if you find 

 that the buds are too thick, pick off one here and there — that 

 helps more than the thinning of the fruit. On more than one 

 occasion I have seen a man bring in a dozen good pears as speci- 

 mens, but they were not a dozen selected out of a bushel ; he 

 had plenty more just like them. All good ones will bring a 

 double price, so there is no money lost. 



Now there are other questions which, of course, any beginner 

 or amateur, in raising pears, will run up against. I will say, in 

 reference to the question of what is called the pear blight, that 

 1 do not think I ought to go into that extensively to-day. It is, 

 I believe, attributed to two causes, — one is that the sap becomes 

 unhealthy, and the other the ravages of a small insect. We 

 have found, however, that some varieties are more subject to it 

 than others. These are very rapid growing varieties, and always 

 grow very late in the fall. Two which have come under my 

 particular observation, and which would be very fine pears, and 

 generally liked, if it were not for the pear blight, are the Clapp's 

 Favorite and the Lucrative. 



Then comes the question of picking the pears and ripening 

 them. We will try to condense what we have to say on this 

 point. There is one pear that is better ripened on the tree than 

 off', and that is the Seckel. Every other one that I have had 

 experience with, is better taken off of the tree and put in a cool, 

 dark place, preferably in the house ; or if you have the right 

 kind of a cellar, a cool, dry one, in the cellar. The quality is 

 very much beyond that of a pear which is allowed to ripen on 

 the tree. The September and the early October pears, with the 

 jcxcci)tion of the Seckel, if left on the tree would rot at the core 

 and would not be fit to eat. So you want to take this as a prin- 

 ciple — that you must ripen your pears off of the tree. 



Then might come the question as to what our best varieties 

 are. Well, this Society has the best five and the best ten, in 



