150 Management of Pear Trees. [Sept., 



MANAGEMENT OF PEAR TREES. 

 We deem it unnecessary to apologize to our readers for copy- 

 \x\^ the following article entire, from the Gardeners' Chronicle. 

 This mode of management of pears seem highly and well worth 

 knowing, and though our climate is better adapted for the per- 

 fecting of most fruits than England, still the principles which are 

 applicable to the management of the pear in that humid climate, 

 will undoubtedly be in a measure applicable here. 



I feel that it is a duty I owe to your correspondents and the 

 gardening world generally, to notice the letter of a " Constant 

 Reader," in No. 21. It will, perhaps, be the better mode to take 

 his questions and remarks seriatim: he says, " I have been for 

 years much interested in the proper stock for fruit trees; my im- 

 pression is that the pear cannot be produced in its highest state of 

 perfection (whatever the mode of treatment or the stock used) on 

 any other stock save the pear stock." To this I can answer most 

 positively that the very iinest pears I have ever seen or tasted, 

 have been produced on pear trees gralted on the quince. I use 

 no stocks but the pear and the quince; the former for orchard 

 trees, or for those who prefer the pear stock; the latter solely for 

 garden trees, principally to form prolific pyramidal trees, for which 

 they are unrivalled both in beauty and fertility. I fear " Con- 

 stant Reader" has also been constant to his home; has he never 

 seen or tasted the magnificent pears in some of the fruit gardens 

 near Paris? has he never seen the pear trees in the Potagerie at 

 Versailles, or tasted the fruit from them? (Mind, trees there, are 

 nearly all grafted on the quince.) If he has not done this he has 

 yet something to see and taste. I repeat that I use only the pear 

 and the quince as stocks, and I find the pear stock submit as kindly 

 to root pruning (or even more so) as the quince. I can illustrate 

 the good effects of root pruning very forcibly in my specimen or- 

 chard, and at any time your correspondent may see and believe; 

 however, I must tell my tale, and then proceed. 



About 30 years ago my father planted some rows of pear trees 

 in a portion of the nursery, then a recent purchase; these were 

 all common sorts of pears, standards, grafted as usual on the pear 

 stock. They grew must luxuriantly for some eight or ten years, 

 when their leaves began to change from their usually vivid green 

 to a light yellow; in a year or two this yellow tint increased till 

 their foliage was really of a bright straw color; the trees soon af- 

 ter all died, so that at the end of fifteen years not a tree was left 



