282 THE CULTIVATION OF THE 



healthy grafts and buds, it would be doing work worthy 

 of the gratitude of the whole country. 



If pear land is damp or wet it should be drained, 

 and thus the chances of blight will become less. 



As to shelter, I, as I have said before, prefer an 

 open site for the pear orchard, but H. H. McMullen,Esq., 

 of New Castle Hundred, has a pear orchard of about 

 fifty trees or more, probably 25 years old ; they are 

 sheltered by his house, by pine trees and farm buildings 

 on all sides, except the southeast. These trees have 

 always borne excellent crops, and I believe there has 

 never been any blight in them. There are both Dwarf 

 and Standard trees, and some of them are of varieties 

 that blight frequently in other places. I think this is 

 the most satisfactory little pear orchard I have ever 

 known. It has been kept well tilled, and fertilized with 

 stiper-phosphates. 



If a tree blights I advise, at once, to cut out every 

 trace of it, and several inches of sound wood beyond 

 the blight. A blighted tivig, even, should never stay on a 

 pear tree twenty-four hours. Have it cut off, carried 

 away and burned. Keep one man in your orchard all 

 the time, if necessary, in hot weather, to cut out blight, 

 carry it out of the orchard and bjirn it forthwith. After 

 you have cut out the blighted wood, slit down the bark 

 from the cut (if on a limb) to the maiti trunk, and then 



