214 



THE POMOLOGIST AND GARDENER. 



1871 



summer pears, that the fruit must be taken from 

 the tree before it becomes mellow, in order to have 

 it fit to eat. The Madaline, Bloodgood, and nearly- 

 all other early pears, are about as delicious and 

 juicy as a handful of dry flour, when allowed to 

 ripen on the tree. Some should be picked even 

 before fully grown and colored, especially from 

 dwarf trees Among such I would name Kirtland 

 and Tyson, both perfectly worthless when ripened 

 on the tree, but among the very best if picked as 

 soon as grown, but if allowed to approach to near 

 maturity before picking, liable to become " mealy " 

 instead of almost bursting with honeyed, free juice. 

 The Flemish Beauty will ripen to almo.st perfec- 

 tion, if specimens well exposed to the sun are taken 

 from the tree as early as the first of July, or when 

 only one-third grown. I take advantage of this, 

 and change it into one of my earliest, and certainly 

 best summer pears. My plan with it — and it will 

 apply to all other pears I have tried — and I believe 

 it will apply to all summer and autumn pears — is 

 as soon as the fruit has attained the size of a 

 " quail's egg," to look over my trees, and remove 

 all ill shaped fruits any way, and if there is an over 

 burdensome crop, one-third, one-half or two-thirds 

 of the fruit, using proper judgment in relieving the 

 tree, so that the fruit left will have a good chance 

 to grow. Then as soon as the fruit left is half to 

 two-thirds grown, if my trees are in the least over- 

 burdened, (and I almost invariably find them in 

 that condition if they have a crop at all), I take off 

 half and ripen them up in the house, and place 

 them ou the market. The fruit left on my trees 

 will grow to a great size, and makes nearly as many 

 bushels as if all had been left on, and from its 

 superior size brings me more money than if all had 

 been left on the tree Besides, the trees are greatly 

 relieved, for it is a well known fact to the observing 

 man, that it is the seeds of the pear, the maturing 

 of them that exhausts the tree, rather than the 

 maturing of the sarcocwrp, or fleshy and edible por- 

 tion of the fruit. 



There is one other point in pear growing that I 

 wish to seriously protest against. That is, the out- 

 rageous habit many growers have of propping their 

 trees up, or rather the leaving of fruit enough on a 

 tree to break it down if it is not propped up. 

 "What! let our trees break down? Not by any 

 means. Any tree or branch that has fruit enough 

 on it so as to be in danger of breaking should have 

 a part taken ofl" before it is at all endangered, for 

 there is nothing surer to bring about the death o a 

 pear tree in the West, especially in our dry seasons, 

 than an overburdensome crop of fruit allowed to 

 mature on the tree. 



[The imporance of trimming out the fruit of 

 overburdened trees should be better understood 



One of the finest Flemish Beauty trees that ever 

 grew was to be seen in one of the fruit gardens of 

 this city in 1867. The tree had been set about ten 

 years, and was a perfect model of a tree. It had 

 borne several fair crops but the crop of that season 

 was a wonder both in size of fruit and quantity — 

 every branch and twig was overburdened. Early 

 in the season we advised the owner to thin out the 

 crop one-third. He demurred — •" nature knows her 

 own business best." The tree ripened up its pre- 

 cious burden, and with it gave up the ghost — its 

 leaves dropped prematurely and for the last time. — 



Editok.] 



« ♦ « 



Tbe Pear and Apple Tree Blight, South. 



The Western Eurcdist, published at Louisville, 

 Ky., and at Nashville, Tenn., says : 



" As we intimated in a former number, fire blight 

 or frozen sap blight, has prevailed in its most vio- 

 lent phases since the cold storm on the night of the 

 22d of April. What is not usual in the former his- 

 tory of blights in this district, the present visitation 

 of the malady seems to affect the Bartlett most seri- 

 ously, although it has heretofore seemed, like the 

 Seckel and Low, to be but slightly susceptible of 

 injury from this cause. Glout Morceau, Madelein, 

 Beurre Diel, White Doyenne, Osband's Summer, 

 Andrews, St. Christain, Beurre Superfine, Sheldon, 

 Flemish Beauty, English Jargond, Dix Columbia, 

 Jaminette, Buffam, Urbaniste, and Belle et Bonne, 

 have all suffered considerably in our grounds. 

 Some others slightly, and only Lawrence, Seckel, 

 Bloodgood, Gary, and Tyson, of bearing size, have 

 escaped unharmed. As a result of the same sharp 

 frost which so seriously damaged the pear, many 

 varieties of the apple have clusters of young fruit- 

 lets, with the small branches on which they grew, 

 scattered over the whole surface of the trees affect- 

 ed, that beyond mistake are the victims of blight. 

 We noticed some trees of the Baldwin, Alexander, 

 Newtown Pippin, and Gloria Mundi, which at one 

 time seemed to be struck down. They have since, 

 however, rallied and seem to be nursing well a 

 heavy crop of fruit, which survived the frost while 

 these branches and the clusters blooming on them 

 have perished. 



There is one fact about blight in the apple to 

 which we would call the special attention of the 

 orchardist, and that is that gangrene cannot eat its 

 way into and down the larger branches, as in the 

 pear. We think a disease is half cured when we 

 know exactly how it comes and how it spreads it- 

 self We sometimes think the susceptibility to vio- 

 lent phases of blight consists iu the gross and fleshy 

 texture of the bark. We know by experience that 

 when gangrene gets into the live bark on the body 

 of a plum or cherry tree, it is almost impossible to 

 arrest it and form a healthy lip to the wound. And 

 we know, moreover, that Glout Morceau has a bark 

 of this sort, and besides that Glout Morceau suffers 

 more from blight than perhaps any tree in the cat- 

 alogue. We shall be glad to hear from our breth- 

 ren orchardists on this point." 



