THE NURSERY-LIST 385 



The pear can also be grown on the apple, thorn and mountain 

 ash. On the apple it is short-lived, although pear cions, set in the top 

 of an old apple tree, often bear large fruits for a few years. When 

 pear stocks cannot be had, pears are sometimes worked on apple 

 roots. If the cions are long they will emit roots, and when the apple 

 nurse fails the pear becomes own-rooted. Good dwarf trees are often 

 reported on the thorn. The subject is little understood. The moun- 

 tain ash is sometimes used for the purpose of growing pears on a 

 sandy soil, but its use appears to be of little consequence. All these 

 special stocks are of doubtful utility. 



Pears of the Le Conte and Kieffer type are often grown from cut- 

 tings in the South. Cuttings are made of the recent mature growth, 

 about a foot in length, and are planted in the open ground, after 

 the manner of long grape cuttings. Le Conto, Garber, Smith, and 

 other very strong growers of the Chinese type, are probably best 

 when grown from cuttings. They soon overgrow French stocks, as 

 also apple stocks, which have been used to some extent ; but if long 

 cions are used, own-rooted trees are soon obtained, and the stock will 

 have served a useful purpose in pushing the cion the first two or 

 three years. 



Pecan (Gary a, or Hicoria, Pecan). Juglandacece. (C. A. 

 Reed.) 



The species is propagated by seeds, varieties by budding and 

 grafting. Nuts for planting should be gathered as soon as ripe, 

 cured so as to remove excess moisture, without drying, and planted 

 at once, or better stratified or held in storage until spring. The 

 soil should be a fertile loam, preferably underlain with a firm but 

 not hard clay subsoil, and moist without being wet. It should 

 be well prepared and the nuts planted about 3 inches deep, 8 to 10 

 inches apart in the row and the rows 4 to 6 feet apart. In the South, 

 well-selected nuts planted in January should make seedlings fit 

 for grafting in one to three years. Some of those grafted in one 

 year should be of sufficient size for transplanting to permanent 

 orchard positions the following winter, or two years after the nuts 

 were planted. As budding is performed only in summer, the earliest 

 that any of these seedlings ordinarily can be used by this method is 

 when eighteen months of age. 



The advantages of grafting over budding, or vice versa, are 

 dependent more on the convenience and skill of the operator than 

 on the method. In either case preferably the operation should be 

 2c 



