S$ f HE SUBURBANITE'S HANDBOOK 



commercial orchards, and they advised him NOT to have many 

 varieties, but have enough of one variety to produce carload lots of 

 fruit of a kind. This was good, sound advice, as far as it went. Our 

 friend studied over the matter and found that most of the orchards 

 were chiefly given over to apple culture. He also found that not 

 very many pears were grown in his vicinity, and that pears fetched 

 a higher price in the market than apples, and that the Bartlett pear 

 always stood at the head of the market. As he had plenty of money 

 to enable him to indulge his own desires, he decided to plant his 160 

 acres with a solid block of Bartlett pears. Consequently he gave a 

 contract to a local nursery man to furnish and plant 5,500 Bartlett 

 pears, which was accomplished in first-class style. It was a picture 

 to see those trees growing in rows half a mile long and as straight 

 as a line could make them. The gentleman took the greatest pride 

 in his pear orchard, keeping it well cultivated, not allowing a weed 

 to grow on the whole quarter section, and waited for the time for 

 fruitage to come. But alas, no fruit came, and, unlike the House of 

 Israel, described by the prophet as a vineyard that brought forth 

 wild grapes, this pear orchard did not even bring forth wild pears, 

 but was utterly barren and unproductive. He now thought it well 

 to see what the Agricultural college men had to say about it, which 

 he should have done before he started in. The first question asked 

 by the professor was : ' i Were there only Bartlett pears in the block ? ' ' 

 * ' Yes, only Bartlett pears, and they were always so thrifty. " ' * There 

 was your error. The Bartlett pear is not self fertile and requires 

 other varieties planted in close proximity to fertilize the flowers." 

 Consequently he had to dig up or graft over a large number of the 

 trees and plant other varieties. 



The fig is an example of a very interesting peculiarity in fer- 

 tilization. There are three classes of fig trees, the Capri (or wild fig), 

 growing in Symra; the fruit bearing fig, growing also in Smyrna, 

 and the Adriatic. There is a peculiar kind of wasp that breeds in 

 the Capri or wild fig, and unless those Capril figs at the proper sea- 

 son are removed and hung up in the Smyrna fig tree it will not be fer- 

 tilized. The Adriatic fig, not having any Capril figs near, cannot 

 be fertilized and only produce an inferior class of figs, but its seed 

 is non-productive. The flowers of the fig are inside the fruit, and 

 to be fertilized the wasp crawls in and fertilizes them ; consequently 

 the best figs in the market are (or rather have been) the Smyrna 

 fig. In California in the early days the mission padres imported the 



