418 THE PEAR. 



tree to new growth. It is in accordance with this, that many 

 persons have remarked, that those pear trees growing in com- 

 mon meadow land, were free from blight in seasons when those 

 in the rich garden soils were continually suffering from it. 



The first point then should be to secure a rich but dry, well 

 drained soil. Cold aspects and soils should be avoided, as likely 

 to retard the growth and ripening of the wood. 



The second is to reject, in blighted districts, such varieties as 

 have the habit of making wood late, and choosing rather those 

 of early habit, which ripen the wood fully before autumn. 



Severe summer pruning, should it be followed by an early 

 winter, is likely to induce blight, and should therefore be avoid- 

 ed. Indeed, we think the pear should always be pruned in 

 winter or early spring.* 



As a remedy for blight actually existing in a tree, we know 

 of no other but that of freely cutting out the diseased branches, 

 at the earliest moment after it appears. The amputation should 

 be continued as far down as the least sign of discoloration and 

 consequent poisoning is perceptible, and it should not be neg- 

 lected a single day after it manifests itself. A still better re- 

 medy, when we are led to suspect, during the winter, that it is 

 likely to break out in the ensuing summer, is that of carefully 

 looking over the trees before the buds swell, and cutting out all 

 branches that show the discoloured or soft sappy spots of bark 

 that are the first symptoms of the disease. 



Finally, as a preventive, when it is evident, from the nature 

 of the season and soil, that a late autumnal growth will take 

 place, we recommend laying bare the roots of the trees for two 

 or three weeks. Root pruning will always check any tendency 

 to over-luxuriance in particular sorts, or in young bearing trees, 

 and is therefore a valuable assistance when the disease is feared. 

 And the use of lime in strong soils, as a fertilizer, instead of 

 manure, is worthy of extensive trial, because lime has a tend- 

 ency to throw all fruit trees into the production of short-jointed 

 fruit-spurs, instead of the luxuriant woody shoots induced by 

 animal manure. 



In gardens, where, from the natural dampness of the soil or 

 locality, it is nearly impossible to escape blight, we recommend 

 that mode of dwarfing the growth of the trees conical stan- 

 dards, or quenouilles, described in the section on pruning. This 

 mode can scarcely fail to secure a good crop in any soil or cli- 

 mate where the pear tree will flourish. 



* The only severe case of blight in the gardens here, during the sum- 

 mer of 1844, was in the head of a Gilogil pear a very hardy sort, which 

 had never before suffered. Theprevious midsummer it had been severely 

 pruned, and headed back, which threw it into late growth. The next 

 season nearly the whole remaining part of the tree died with the frozen- 

 sap blight. 



