FRUITS. 141 



preciativc of generous treatment, and will not often fail to repay 

 such treatment with a bountiful supply of fruit, provided that 

 appropriate care is paid to training into due form, and that over- 

 bearing be effectually guarded against. 



In regard to the best time for gathering, it appears to be gener- 

 ally conceded that summer pears should be taken from the tree 

 as soon as they are judged to be sufficiently matured for the 

 purpose, and ripened in the house in darkness and even tem- 

 perature ; and that winter pears should remain on the tree as 

 long as they be exempt from injury by frost. 



Every person who owns, or who rents for a few years a limit- 

 ed quantity of land, may soon realize an ample supply of excel- 

 lent pears for his family, for nearly nine months of each year, 

 by making a judicious selection of good dwarf trees, setting 

 them in properly prepared soil, and giving them appropriate 

 cultivation. It is a tree little injured by removal, and tenants 

 when removing may take their trees with them, and reset and 

 care for them in their new location. 



This region is not the Eden of the pear-tree, like Holland and 

 Belgium, or like California, where neither tree nor fruit is 

 troubled by any bug, fire-blight, sun or rain ; for here both tree 

 and fruit are subject to injuries enough by blights and insects 

 to require the careful attention of the intelligent culturist that 

 the best success may be attained. 



"Would it not tend to promote the interests of pear culture for 

 the Society to offer premiums for the best selection and most 

 successful cultivation of trees, not less than twenty in number 

 on the quince, and also on the pear stock ? 



Is it not important that competitors for premiums on pears 

 should be required to make statements of their mode of culti- 

 vation, preparation of soil, selection of trees, and the varieties 

 that succeed best with them, whether on the quince or on stand- 

 ard trees, etc. ? 



James S. Lewis, Chairman. 



