PEARS 



1595 



drives a stake accurately behind it. At 

 the same time an assistant, stationed at 

 the opposite side of the field, also carrying 

 an armful of stakes, places a stake at his 

 end of the row. A third man with a sup- 

 ply of stakes is stationed midway between 

 these two, and after the end stakes are 

 driven the foreman sights between them 

 and accurately locates the position of the 

 middle stake while the helper drives it, 

 thus setting the three stakes in line on 

 each row. In the same manner the rows 

 are staked out in the other direction. 

 This is very quickly and accurately done 

 unless hills are encountered, which are 

 difficult to sight over, but by using a 

 long pole for guiding the location of the 

 stakes this difficulty may be overcome. 

 The result is a stake marking each end of 

 each row and a row of stakes across the 

 center of the field each way marking the 

 middle point of each tree row. 



Taking the most convenient direction, 

 the deep dead furrows are then plowed, 

 and necessarily with them the center 

 stakes, which must be reset by sighting. 

 The trees are then brought into the field 

 and the bunch of bundles required to 

 plant each particular row, as shown by the 

 plan on paper, is then roughly heeled in 

 in the dead furrow at the end of the row. 

 While up to this time considerable labor 

 has been expended in preparation work, 

 from now on the planting can proceed 

 with great rapidity and accuracy. The 

 planting gang should consist of four men, 

 viz., the foreman, who holds the tree and 

 tramples the earth around it; two shov- 

 elers, one of whom must be a good hand 

 at sighting a straight row; and a fourth 

 man, who prunes and drops the trees at 

 about the places where they are to be 

 planted. The foreman holds the tree in 

 his hands in a vertical position and sights 

 accurately its alignment with the center 

 stake and the end stake beyond. The first 

 shoveler stands in line with the cross row 

 and sights on the center stake and end 

 stake of that row. This results in easily 

 placing a tree within an inch of where it 

 should be. If any additional digging is 

 necessary the two shovelers strike in 

 with their shovels and remove the neces- 



sary earth. The tree is then set in place, 

 and the mellow earth shoveled around it, 

 the foreman trampling the soil firmly 

 around the roots as it is thrown in. He 

 keeps the tree in line on the row being 

 planted, while one of the shovelers sees 

 that it is kept in line in the other direc- 

 tion. In this way four good men can 

 plant out easily from 500 to 1,000 trees in 

 a day. When the planting is finished, a 

 one-horse plow is used to fill in the dead 

 furrows and to throw the earth more 

 thoroughly around the trees. 



Vicar of Wakefield. 



Cultivation 



The history of the pear orchard in all 

 questions of cultivation should be consid- 

 ered as divided into two periods: (1) 

 the young orchard before it comes into 

 bearing, (2) the bearing orchard. It is 

 necessary for complete success in growing 

 pears that the ground should be thor- 

 oughly plowed each spring and kept in a 

 good state of cultivation until midsum- 

 mer. In the young orchard this involves 

 a great deal of expense with very little 



