FRUIT committee's REPORT. 41 



themselves of every means tending to insure a propitious result, and to take 

 advantage of the experience of their predecessors, whether manifested in 

 success or failure. Any, who, induced by the glowing accounts sometimes 

 given of the great profits attending it, shall enter upon the pursuit withoHt 

 adopting the means necessary to succeed, will probably rue the failure of 

 unreasonable expectations. 



Besides the difficulty of making a proper selection of varieties, there is, in 

 relation to pear culture, another embarrassment that sometimes meets the be- 

 ginner at the threshold ; that is, to decide what stocks are best suited to his 

 purpose — the pear being cultivated as standards on their own roots and as 

 dwarfs on quince stocks. The expediency of cultivating the pear as dwarfs 

 on quince stocks, is at present less a matter of controversy than it once was, 

 yet has that controversy not wholly ceased, as is evidenced by articles that 

 occasionally appear in the horticultural periodicals in reference to it ; and 

 while the expediency of the practice is in most cases generally admitted, 

 there are yet some by whom it is wholly condemned. At first it would seem 

 that this was a subject upon which there could be no question, that the pear 

 must be the most suitable stock for the pear ; and that the use of the quince 

 for the purpose, could only be justifiable under certain exceptional circum- 

 stances. Yet in practice this is found not to be the case. That, though some 

 few kinds of pears will not succeed upon the quince, that the greater part do 

 so; fortunately including among such as do succeed most of the most esteemed 

 varieties, while there are some that seem completely to assimilate with that 

 stock, and whose fruit when so grown is superior to that of the same variety 

 when grown on the pear. The quince as a stock for the pear has long been 

 in general use in Belgium and in France, and is being more and more ex- 

 tensively used for that purpose in this country. Where there is ample space 

 the beginner, and even the experienced grower, will probal)ly best solve the 

 question, and most to their satisfaction, by adopting both modes of cultivation; 

 in planting, set a portion of their trees as standards on the pear stocks, and 

 a portion as dwarfs on quince, but when the space to be appropriated to this 

 culture is limited in extent, particularly if much variety in kinds is thought 

 desirable, the exclusive use of dwarfs upon quince stocks will, it is believed, 

 afford altogether the most satisfactory results. Upon quince stocks the trees 

 never attain a large size, and if properly treated can be kept in a very com- 

 pact form ; they thus can be set much nearer together, than if upon their own 

 roots, and thus tend to protect each other from the injurious effects of high 

 winds. So planted, a given space of ground will, it is believed, produce as 

 great a weight of fruit as if set with trees on their own roots ; and, coming 

 sooner into bearing, the pecuniary results of this mode of cultivation will, 

 it is thought, be fully as satisfactory, if not more so. Other advantages at- 

 tending the use of quince as a stock for the pear are, that the trees being 

 small and compact they can be managed much more easily, and with less 

 expense in training and pruning the trees, and in thinning and gathering the 



