No. 9. 



To mahe Pear Trees Fruitful. 



275 



To Make Pear Trees Fruitful. 



As we proceed witli the Fmitist, the sub- 

 jects of which it is dostinod to treat, branch 

 out and exhibit more and more the import- 

 ance of increased attention on tiic part of 

 the fruit grower. Although it may be but 

 a single tree that he has to manage, oven 

 this, in proportion to his knowledge and at- 

 tention, will be made matter of pleasure 

 and profit. The following paper, submitted 

 to the Horticultural Society by its late pre- 

 sident, T. A. Knight, Esq., indicates princi- 

 ples, of the advantages of which the culti- 

 vator may avail himself in other ways than 

 those to which they are applied in the expe- 

 riments detailed. 



" The pear-tree exercises the patience of 

 the planter during a longer period before it 

 affords fruit, than any other grafted tree 

 which finds a place in our gardens; and 

 though it is subsequently very long-lived, it 

 generally, when trained to a wall, becomes 

 in a few years unproductive of fruit, except 

 at the extremities of its lateral branches. 

 Both these defects are, however, I have good 

 reason to believe, the result of improper 

 management; for I have lately succeeded 

 most perfectly in rendering my old trees 

 very productive in every part; and my young 

 trees have almost always afforded fruit the 

 second year after being grafted; and none 

 have remained barren beyond the third 

 year. 



"In detailing the mode of pruning and 

 culture I have adopted, I shall probably 

 more easily render myself intelligible, by 

 describing accurately .the management of a 

 single tree each. 



" An old St. Germain pear-tree, of the 

 spurious kind, had been trained in the fan 

 form, against a north-west wall in my gar- 

 den, and the central branches, as usually 

 happens in old trees thus trained, had long- 

 reached the top of the wall, and had become 

 wholly unproductive. The other branches 

 afforded but very little fruit, and that never 

 acquiring maturity, was consequently of no 

 value; so that it was necessary to change 

 the variety, as well as to render the tree 

 productive. 



" To attain these purposes, every branch 

 which did not want at least twenty degrees 

 of being perpendicular, was taken out at its 

 base; and the spurs upon every other branch, 

 which I intended to retain, were taken off 

 closely with the saw and chisel. Into these 

 branches, at their subdivisions, grafts were 

 inserted at different distances from the root, 

 and some so near the extremities of the 

 branches, that the tree extended as widely 



in tlie autumn, after it was grafted, as it did 

 in tlie preceding year. The grafts were 

 also so disposed, that every part of the space 

 the tree previously covered, was equally well 

 supplied witii young wood. 



"As soon in the succeeding summer as 

 tlie young shoots had attained sufiiciont 

 Icnotli, they were trained almost perpen- 

 dicularly downwards, between the larger 

 branches and the wall, to which they were 

 nailed. The most perpendicular remaining 

 branch upon each side, was grafted about 

 four feet below the top of the wall, which 

 is twelve feet high; and the young shoots 

 which the grafts upon these afforded, were 

 trained inwards, and bent down to occupy 

 the space from which the old central brandi- 

 es had been taken away; and therefore very 

 little vacant space anywhere remained in 

 the end of the first autumn. A few blos- 

 soms, but not any fruit, were produced by 

 several of the grafts in the succeeding 

 spring ; but in the following year, and sub- 

 sequently, I have had abundant crops, equally 

 dispersed over every part of the tree ; and I 

 have scarcely ever seen such an exuberance 

 of blossom as this tree presents in the pre- 

 sent spring. Grafts of eight different kinds 

 of pears had been inserted, and all afforded 

 fruit, and almost in equal abundance. By 

 this mode of training, the bearing branches 

 being small and short, may be changed every 

 three or four years, till the tree is a century 

 old, without the loss of a single crop; and 

 the central part, which is unproductive in 

 every other mode of training, becomes the 

 most fruitful. I proceed to the management 

 of young trees. 



"A young pear stock, which had two late- 

 ral branches upon each side, and was about 

 six feet high, was planted against a wall 

 early in the spring ; and it was grafted in 

 each of its lateral branches, two of which 

 sprang out of the stem about four feet from 

 the ground, and the others at its summit, in 

 the following year. The shoots these grafts 

 produced, when about a foot long, were 

 trained downwards, as in the preceding ex- 

 periment, the undermost nearly perpendicu- 

 larly, and the uppermost just below the hori- 

 zontal line, placing tliem at such distances, 

 that the leaves of one shoot did not at all 

 shade those of another, in the next year 

 the same mode of training was continued, 

 and in the following I obtained an abundant 

 crop of fruit, and the tree is again heavily 

 loaded with blossoms. 



" This mode of training was first applied 

 to the Aston-town pear, which rarely pro- 

 duces fruit till six or seven years after the 

 trees have been grafted ; and from this va- 



