GROWING TREES FROM BEARING ONES. 45 



bloom, though I do not expect them to set the fruit. Ordi- 

 narily an orange from seed or from a young non-bearing tree 

 takes eight or nine years to bear. Still another instance 

 stands near my home in Galveston. J. C. Trube has two 

 vigorous young Le Conte pear trees, now four years old. 

 They bore quite a number of pears the second and third 

 years, were full the fourth, and are now again white with blos- 

 soms. Another friend, C. C. Petitt, told me recently that 

 Le Conte pear trees I sold him seven years ago, which he 

 planted at Dickinson, have bloomed but sparingly, but that 

 others I sold him two years ago are white with blooms. The 

 first lot. were taken from my orchard before a large part of it 

 began to bear, or before I knew anything of these facts, but 

 the last, now in bloom, were propagated from the bearing 

 trees. 



But it is useless to multiply instances which have been 

 furnished me regarding the various fruits, all pointing the 

 same way. While a single remove, or even a second one, 

 from a bearing tree might not affect the time of bearing 

 much, trees grown repeatedly and for years from young trees 

 in nursery rows will certainly be much later in coming into 

 bearing. This accounts fully for the fact that there are a 

 great number of pear trees in this section now six, seven and 

 eight years old that have borne little or no fruit, and pear as 

 well as apple trees all over the country which have behaved 

 the same way. The pear and apple are particularly affected 

 thus, and, being naturally slow to bear, no cions or buds 

 for propagation should ever be taken from young trees in 

 nursery rows, or from other than healthy trees, that have 

 come into full bearing. It is a great injustice to purchasers 

 to thus keep them waiting for fruit years after the time when 

 trees should bear. Every pear or apple tree grown from a 

 settled bearing tree will bear full the fourth or fifth year at 

 farthest. 



I will close this subject with several quotations, the first 

 from an unnamed correspondent of The Rural New- Yorker, 

 the second from Prof. L. H. Bailey, of Cornell, and the 

 others bv the parties whose names are signed, all going to 



