Dwarf Pears. 167 



so charmed by the prospect of seeing his little trees hanging' full of 

 luscious pears, that he cannot make up his mind to take oft' from one 

 half to nine tenths of the crop. Nevertheless, if he would not have them 

 deficient in flavor, and more than that, if he would not have the vigor 

 of his young trees permanently impaired, he ?7ttist thin, and often to an 

 extent which appears to him cruel, but is, in reality, most merciful to 

 the trees. 



We are decidedly opposed to the practice of allowing dwarf pears to 

 root from the graft. It has been argued that by planting dwarfs we can 

 get fruit earlier, and afterwards secure the permanence of the standard, 

 by allowing the trees to root from the graft. This course, no doubt, has 

 its advantages ; but if we wanted standards, we should prefer to plant 

 standards, and a good plan would be to set standards twenty feet apart, 

 each way, with dwarfs between, the dwarfs to be removed when the 

 standards required all the room. But if, when dwarfs begin to fail, they 

 show a disposition to root from the pear (and we think they do not gen- 

 erally do this so long as the quince root remains vigorous), the cultivator 

 wishes them transformed to standards, he should remember that the pear 

 is apt to send out a single strong root, on one side, with a corresponding 

 shoot above, thus making an ill-balanced tree, and he should take meas- 

 ures to cause it to root regularly all round, by " lipping" the trees. This 

 is done by cutting several tongues with a small gouge, beginning at the 

 bottom of the swelling which forms on the pear just above its junction 

 with the quince, and pushing it upwards about an inch. The cuts 

 must be kept open by placing a small pebble in them. It may be done 

 either at the beginning of the growing season, or when the leaves ripen, 

 early in September, covering above the cuts with rich earth. 



Nor would we advise "double working" to any considerable extent. 

 This operation consists in grafting on the quince some pear which 

 makes a strong growth on that stock, and then regrafting it with a 

 variety which does not succeed directly on the quince. When a 

 dwarf pear becomes sufficiently large to graft in the limbs, any kind 

 may be put in it ; but so far as our observation goes, the practice of 

 double working one or two year old trees is veiy troublesome, and ver}^ 

 unsatisfactory, and we should advise the cultivator of dwarf pears to be 

 content with such kinds as succeed when grafted directly on to good 

 thrifty quince stocks. 



