2l8 THE CULTIVATION OF THE 



The seed should be from healthy common Choke, or 

 Hedge pears if possible, and certainly the least relation 

 the seeds bear to our finer pears the better. They 

 should be planted in the fall, very soon after they have 

 been taken from the fruit. Plant them in broad drills 

 and keep them well tilled and attended to, until they 

 are about one-fourth of an inch in diameter, and then 

 take them up in the spring or fall and transplant them 

 to nursery rows, twelve inches apart, and four feet 

 between the rows. These may be budded or grafted in 

 a year. The great enemy to pear seedlings is leaf- 

 blight. It comes on in mid-summer, the leaves turn 

 brown and drop off. The cause is, probably, the aphis 

 and other insects, and raw manures. The remedy is to 

 pull out diseased trees, avoid raw manures, and not to 

 force the tree too much, and cultivate attentively, and 

 Paris Green or Hellebore the leaves in the season. The 

 seedlings which come from France and other parts of 

 Europe, reach here in the fall ; are then kept in moist 

 sand or saw-dust in a cellar, or room protected from 

 frost, are then planted the following spring in nursery 

 row, and budded in the following July and August. If 

 the seedlings are large and it is intended to graft 

 them, they may be kept as before stated, and grafted in 

 the winter at your leisure, and returned to the damp 

 sand or saw-dust, and then set out the coming spring in 

 nursery-row, planting the graft in the ground and 



