PEARS. 375 



small gardens,* and for ripening many of our finest autum- 

 nal fruit, being less exposed to high winds, and affording 

 greater security to heavy fruit. 



Pears intended for espaliers, as well as for Quenouille 

 training, should be propagated upon the Quince stock ; and 

 grafted plants, as I have observed before, are preferable to 

 those which have been raised from buds. Horizontal train- 

 ing as recommended for Apples, is that which is best adapt- 

 ed for the Pear, arid the method laid down for forming the 

 tree the same : the horizontal branches may also be train- 

 ed at nine or ten inches apart, unless it be for those sorts 

 whose fruit are very large ; these will be better if they are 

 allowed a foot.| 



Trained Pears, both as espaliers and against walls, 

 through negligence and mismanagement, always abound 

 with long naked spurs, not one in twenty of which produces 

 fruit; and on those which do, it is small, ill-shaped, and 

 worthless. When trees are found in this state, those spurs 

 must be reduced by degrees, cutting some clean oat where 

 they have stood too close together, and shortening others. 

 On the neck part of some of these long spurs, there will be 

 frequently one or two good buds to be found ; if so, the spurs 

 must be cut back to those buds ; and where there are none, 

 they should be shortened to within one or two inches of the 

 main branch. In the course of the following summer there 

 will, in all probability, be buds formed at their base, where 

 the old spurs should at the winter pruning be finally re- 

 moved. 



In the course of two or three years, by following up this 

 method, the trees in most cases may be reduced into a fruit- 

 bearing state ; if, however, they have been too long and too 

 much neglected to be reduced in this manner, they must be 

 headed down in the following manner : 



In February or the beginning of March, with a thin fine- 

 toothed saw, cut every branch back to within nine inches of 

 the main stem from which it issued, making the cut in a 

 sloping direction, and as little exposed to view in front as pos- 

 sible, smoothing it afterwards with a sharp knife, and particu- 

 larly the bark round the edge, so that its lacerated parts may 

 be effectually removed ; at the same time every spur, whether 

 good or bad, upon the remaining part of the tree should be 

 cut off close and smooth, but not so close as to touch the 



*jMany of our finest Pears require'the ahelter and protection of an espalier, our 

 winters to the north and east are too severe for them. Ed. 



t See espalier Apples. 



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