STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. HI 



chances for a loss. A merchant always takes these into consider- 

 ation in his margin of profits, and T don't know of any reason why 

 pear cultivation should be an exception to this rule more than any 

 other kind of business. It seems to me it may afford very profita- 

 ble and quite sure crops. It is in the power of almost every one 

 to give the trees some protection. Evergreen trees protect them 

 from the wind, and prevent the fruit from being blown off, and 

 also afford protection in winter. 



Mr. Simpson. I have a Flemish Beauty in my garden which has 

 been growing their several years and has never borne a perfect 

 pear. Every one has cracked. I have a Louise Bonne de Jersey 

 which is a good bearer, and has borne every year for seven or 

 eight years. It is a good pear to cultivate, a hardy tree and does 

 not winter kill. The character of my soil is clayey. 



RuFus Prince of Turner. I have taken a great interest in the 

 culture of the pear. I believe it may be made a success in Maine. 

 In regard to the cracking of the Flemish Beauty, I have a very 

 nice tree of that variety and very seldom see a pear cracked. I 

 don't know what the reason is, except that it gets the water from 

 the sink spout — I have thought that might be it. I ha.ve never 

 failed in getting nice trees. 



The gentleman from Portland spoke of px'otection for pear trees. 

 I have probably as bleak a place as there is — I was going to say in 

 the State of Maine. My land has a north-western slope, and the 

 soil is a gravelly loam. I have perhaps twenty or thirty pear trees 

 which have now begun to bear, — standing where they are exposed 

 to the northwest wind — where it has a clean sweep from the White 

 Mountains. One year I had a Clapp's Favorite grow about five 

 feet there, and it never winter killed a particle. I believe we need 

 have little fear of ti'ees being killed by extreme cold weather. I 

 had a fence about six feet high, and set a row of trees by the side 

 of that, and all but one of them died. I have set them several 

 times and they have died, and I have got to give up the trees or 

 take the fence away. So far as I am concerned I would rather 

 the protection would be out of the way than to have it. I have 

 never had any difiSculty in raising the hardy varieties of pears 

 on that northwestern slope. Any that we can raise anywhere, I 

 can raise there. I had rather undertake to get an orchard of pear 

 trees in bearing, than an orchard of apple trees. I don't know 

 how long pear trees will last, but when I was a boy I set out pear 

 trees that are now doing well. I have not succeeded with the 



