68 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



The Smith's Hybrid is simply a poor Le Conte. It ripens at 

 the same time, but rots more, quickly at the core, and after 

 fruiting several years, my trees were top-budded to Garber, 

 which pear forms a perfect succession to the Le Conte, and 

 is superior in quality to either it or the Kieffer. It resembles 

 the latter closely in shape and size, but has the smooth skin 

 of the Le Conte, and ripens well on or off the tree, never 

 rotting at the core or suffering from the bitter-rot on the out- 

 side, as the Kieffer often does. However, with all its good 

 qualities, it has one most serious fault, and that is, its late- 

 ness in coming into bearing. This is due, probably, to the 

 fact that it has been grown so continuously from young trees 

 that a full crop cannot now be expected on such trees for ten 

 years or more. But it is of the greatest importance that this 

 variety should be largely grown as a succession to Le Conte, 

 when it becomes necessary to can or evaporate our crop. It 

 ripens at a time that offers a better market for pears than any 

 period in the year, for the California, Bartlett and Le Conte 

 are then gone, the Kieffer still green, and the California 

 varieties on the market are far inferior in quality to it. 

 Fortunately, we now have a way to bring this variety into 

 early bearing by budding it on Le Conte, Kieffer or 

 young Garber, grown from cuttings. The great difficulty is 

 to obtain wood from bearing trees. The Kieffer is so well 

 known that comment is unnecessary, except to warn growers 

 against allowing it to overbear. 



While in remarks elsewhere on the decadence of modern 

 orchards no reference to the pear in the South was intended, 

 there is no question that over cropping and non-fertilizing 

 will quickly reduce the fruit to a very small size, and greatly 

 weaken the tree. I omitted to allude to one other pear that 

 is now growing in my former orchard at Hitchcock, which 

 requires mention only as a warning of its utter worthlessness 

 for any purpose. It has from time to time been put before 

 the public as Early Harvest, Jefferson and Lawson-Comet, 

 but is a fraud under any name. A fourteen-year-old tree that 

 cost me two dollars has never borne more than a dozen pears 

 at a time, and never bloomed until it was ten years old, 



