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HARDINESS IN PEARS. 



By Parker Earle, South Pass, 111. 



Hardiness of tree is everywhere indispensable to success in fruit-grow- 

 ing. It is probable that fewer varieties, especially of pear-trees, are entirely 

 hardy in the Mississippi Valley than in New York and New England ; for 

 climate and soil combine here to test varieties more severely than in most 

 portions of the country. Our rich soil and warm autumns tend to late 

 growths, and we are liable to sudden and extreme depressions of temperature 

 which the seaboard States several degrees farther north rarely or never 

 experience. Many varieties of pears are, in consequence, faulty here, which 

 bear a good reputation in New England. This is, in many cases, due to 

 their defoliation in summer, and second growth, in September and October, 

 of wood so immature as to require the most gentle descent to the cold of 

 winter to escape fatal injury. 



My experience with pears the past season has impressed me with the 

 importance of greater caution than has been usual with us in selecting vari- 

 eties for the orchard. On the nth of December last, the mercury went 



