The Fear. 69 



buried a few inches deep, in a well-drained place during 

 winter, to be taken up and planted early in spring. The 

 soil for the seed bed should be moist, deep and rich, and 

 should contain a large amount of humus. Lime and ashes 

 are thought to be especially useful. 



The seeds should be sown thinly in drills, one to two feet 

 apart, and the ground between the drills should be kept 

 clean and well cultivated to avoid leaf blight (82). 



Pear seedlings make few lateral roots the first season and 

 hence are likely to be heaved out by freezing of the soil 

 during winter. To prevent this, the ground between the 

 drills may be heavily mulched with leaves in autumn. 

 Mice may be kept out by surrounding the bed with a ridge 

 of fresh earth a foot or more high. 



Another method of preserving the seedlings is to bury 

 them late in autumn in a cellar, or in a well-drained spot 

 in the open ground. 



Grafting the year. Root grafting is successful with the 

 pear only when large, entire and branching roots are used, 

 and when the grafts are inserted above the crown. Bud- 

 ding the stocks the second year of their growth is more 

 commonly practiced than root grafting. The pear may be 

 top-grafted with considerable facility, but in climates of 

 severe winters the cions should always be cut in autumn. 



^■5. Dwarf pears. The pear is sometimes worked on the 

 French quince. Trees thus grown are much dwarfed, come 

 very early into bearing and thrive on some soils where pear 

 stocks fail. Sometimes the quality of the fruit is improved 

 by grafting the pear in this way. Different varieties of 

 the pear do not grow with equal facility on the quince; a 

 few kinds can be worked upon it successfully only by graft- 

 ing upon a pear that is already growing upon a quince. 



