12 



ROEDING'S FRUIT GROWERS' GUIDE 



DISTANCES APART AND STOCKS 



Trees must have ample room for develop- 

 ment if crops of any consequence are to be har- 

 vested from them when they reach a bearing age. 



Growers are becoming more impressed with this 

 fact than ever before. Crowding a lot of trees 

 on an acre does not mean more fruit. As an actual 

 fact it not only means less, but in addition to 

 this the vitality of the tree is impaired to such 

 an extent that it never reaches its prime vigor. 

 Twenty feet apart is entirely too close to plant 

 pears on pear root; never closer than twenty- 

 four feet is better, and in very strong, deep 

 alluvial soils, well supplied with moisture, there 

 will be no objection to even planting thirty feet 

 apart. Pears on quince root may be planted 

 much closer, because the quince has a decidedly 

 dwarfing tendency on the tree. - Not only has it 

 this effect but it also causes the trees to come 

 into bearing when three years old and holds them 

 in check to a great extent without impairing their 

 vitality. Trees worked on quince are well adapted 

 for use in small gardens where there is not much 

 room. For orchard planting trees should not 

 be set closer than fifteen feet apart. That the 

 trees are long-lived and that a crop failure is almost 

 unknown is aptly illustrated by the famous A. Block 

 orchards in Santa Clara, where the old monarchs, 

 fifty years old and two feet in diameter, still con- 



A five-year-old Bartlett Pear tree with head formed and 

 well supplied with fruit spurs. 



A general view of an eight-year-old Bartlett Pear orchard, pruned 

 along the lines recommended. 



tinue to bear heavy crops of fruit annually. Pears 

 on quince root are very much more expensive to 

 grow than a pear on pear root. First of all, the quince 

 trees must be grown from cuttings. These are planted 

 in beds and the following winter they are planted in 

 nursery rows. Many varieties of pear lack affinity with 

 the quince root and if budded directly on it, the bud 

 will frequently break off in the nursery rows should 

 there be a high wind. When planted in the orchard, 

 the trees may fall over at any time. The only safe plan, 

 then, to follow, is to secure trees that have been double- 

 worked. This means that the Beurre Hardy, which 

 makes a better union on the quince than any other 

 variety of pear, is first budded on this stock and when 

 the tree is grown it is in turn budded to any variety of 

 pear desired. Four years of constant care are required, 

 therefore, before the trees are ready for sale. 



All the old pear orchards in California are on the 

 French pear root. This is being superseded very 

 rapidly by the Japanese pear, because of its wider 

 adaptability and on account of its being less subject to 

 the attack of blight. P^ven the root of the French pear 

 is attacked by blight. This is, in itself, a bad feature 

 which should discourage the use of this stock in all 

 future plantings. 



PRUNING AND SHAPING 



The very marked tendency of the pear to send its 

 branches straight up requires a method of pruning 

 which not only holds the tree under control but will 

 promote fruit spurs from the point where the frame- 

 work branches diverge from the body of the tree to the 

 very top. It goes without argument that this is the 

 desideratum which every pear grower would like to 

 achieve. 



For a number of years, while passing in the train from 

 Lawrence station to San Jose on the Southern Pacific 



