10 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1857. 



Some experienced growers of trees for the market, take care to note such 

 varieties as are best adapted to light and warm soils, and also those which are 

 better adapted to rich, heavy soils. Some varieties do best upon the Quince 

 stock, while others are better upon Pear stocks. These are considerations 

 which should be well understood when a man plants out an orchard of pears. 

 Another great point to be constantly borne in mind is that the Pear crop, by 

 careful cultivation of the soil and judicious manuring, is as much benefitted as 

 any crop that is the subject of cultivation ; and no crop sooner and more surely 

 depreciates in quantity and quality from want of cultivation than the Pear. 

 A Pear tree is a great and gross feeder, and all kinds of manuring, both liquid 

 and solid, that are congenial to the ordinary crops, cultivated with the plow 

 and the hoe, may be applied with success and profitably to the Pear crop. 

 The trees should be as carefully cultivated and kept as free from weeds as our 

 corn crops. The fruit will be all the more abundant and higher in quality for 

 this care and attention. For grounds of limited space, where the Pear can 

 receive that careful attention and an\ple manuring, which seem to be so essen- 

 tial to its successful and perfect development, perhaps it will be advisable to 

 have the larger number of trees upon Quince roots, because upon these stocks, 

 (and they are very prolific), the grower may have on an equal share of ground 

 a larger number of varieties, and probably a larger amount in measure of Pears 

 than if grown on Pear stocks. But it must be borne in mind that these remarks 

 apply more pertinently to grounds which are well cultivated, for if after a 

 season or two of care and cultivation the Pear is to be left to its own care, 

 to grow or die, as the chance may be, then, perhaps, the Pear, on Pear stock, 

 would be the better tree, because, being naturally hardy, it might weather the 

 pinching chill of neglect, and continue a meagre existence forbears, producing 

 some fruit, limited in quantity. 



While much credit is due to those spirited and enterprising cultivators, 

 whose fondness for experimenting leads them largely into the seeking and cul- 

 tivation of new varieties of Pears, yet it is to be borne in mind that in the 

 increased number of new varieties there is still but a multiplying or reproduc- 

 tion of certain original types of character, well marked and defined ; take, 

 for instance, the old St. Michael as a type of one variety of Pear. In the new 

 kinds brought into notice from year to year, will be found many kinds resem- 

 bling this variety, few equal, but none superior to it. So, too, of the Flemish 

 Beauty. It is a well-marked and distinguished Pear of a particular class ; you 

 find something like it produced and reproduced under other names ; but 

 nothing superior and few equal to it. 



And it safely may be said that, selecting carefully a number of varieties, not 

 exceeding twenty, and pi'obably a still smaller number might suffice, and you 

 have combined in the collection all that is really desirable and truly worthy in 

 the Pear. Other kinds assimilate, more or less, to those choice kinds in various 

 ways, but do not excel them, and few equal them. For this list each one must 

 consult his own peculiar taste, drawing aid from the experience of the past, as 

 recorded in the published ])roductions of experienced and competent cultivators. 



