164 HOME FRUIT GROWER 



attractive appearance, very good quality but rather too dry flesh for 

 dessert. Tree large, hardy, rather shy bearing. 



NIAGARA. A yellow freestone variety which resembles Early Crawford 

 but is larger, later, borne more abundantly. The tree is also more 

 adaptable and dependable. 



REEVES. Old favorite, high-quality, yellow-fleshed freestone. Fruit mid- 

 season, medium size, yellow, red cheeked; flesh yellow, red-centered, 

 juicy, melting, sweet, excellent, freestone. Tree vigorous, hardy, only 

 fairly prolific. 



ST. JOHN. An early yellow freestone dessert variety of the highest rank. 

 Fruit handsome, rich, sweet, excellent. Several days earlier than 

 Early Crawford, which it resembles. Tree vigorous, hardy but uncertain 

 of cropping. 



SALWEY. One of the latest varieties, a yellow-fleshed freestone of good but 

 not best quality for dessert but excellent for canning, evaporating and 

 preserving. Often too late for Northern and cold sections. Tree 

 vigorous, hardy, healthy and highly prolific. This European variety 

 is probably the most widely grown of all in the world. 



WAGER. A rather small, yellow-fleshed freestone, mid-season variety of 

 only moderate dessert quality but excellent for culinary uses. Its 

 hardiness, prolificacy and early bearing are remarkable. 



PEAR 



While the Cherry and the Peach have each special claims to 

 attention from home fruit growers the Pear has equal, if not superior, 

 rights. It is every whit as splendid a fruit and its varieties cover a 

 far longer season than either of the others. Yet how many of the 

 present or the rising generation know more varieties than Bartlett 

 and Kieffer, the one mediocre, the other decidedly inferior? To the 

 superabundance of these two, especially the latter, is largely due this 

 ignorance. 



Many Pear varieties are suitable for culinary purposes and not fit 

 for anything else, yet there are several of such superlative excellence 

 that they deserve to rank with the choicest fruits of the world. Some 

 of the leading ones of these are described on succeeding pages. 



The Pear succeeds almost everywhere that the Apple will grow. 

 While it thrives in a considerable variety of soils, it does best in the 

 heavy clays and clay loams. When planted in sandy and other 

 light soils it is usually short lived, perhaps because it there grows 

 too rapidly to resist the blight. For this reason also the trees seem 

 to do best when growing in sod, which tends to check growth partly 

 by using up nitrogenous plant food and water. Stable manure and 

 other nitrogen-supplying plant food must be given very sparingly 

 because they induce woody growth. 



In handling the trees the same methods as those used for the 

 Apple may be used, as the habits of the trees are similar. Pear picking, 



