38 The Western Pomologist and Gardener. 1872 



The Pear and Its Cnltare"in XUree IVumbers—No. 2. 



By the Corresponding Editor. 



Cion and Stock. — Adaptation of cion and stock at first view of this subject, one might 

 be led to believe that a Pear cion worked upon a Pear stock would, if rightly performed, 

 be uniformly successful. Yet this is not the case ; for, although they are of the same 

 species, they are not of the same variety, and must consequently differ in their physical 

 construction. The cells are not always of the same size in the stock and cion, nor of pre- 

 cisely the same shape, consequently the intersticial membrane, which holds the cells in 

 position, and along which the sap flows, cannot correspond in many instances. The union 

 between the two, therefore, is imperfect, producing an unhealthy tree. This is more 

 especially the case where the cion and the stock are of a different species, as the Pear and 

 the Quince, the Pear and the Hawthorn, or the Pear and the Mountain Ash. We appre- 

 hend that in this dissimilarity of cells lies the reason why budding succeeds better than 

 grafting of the pear, even upon its own roots, and more particularly so when grafted 

 upon the Quince. In budding, which can be done only when the bark slips freely from 

 the stock, there is no violence done either to the wood or the bark, the sap passing freely 

 between them before adhesion takes place for the winter. The same reason holds good in 

 budding being more successful in all kinds of stone fruits over grafting. Many diflScul- 

 ties on the subject of propagation are accounted for by understanding the cell system. 



Of Cultivation. — Under the head of cultivation we mean both cultivation of the ground 

 and pruning of the tree. The amount of cultivation necessary to give to Pear orchards, 

 depends, in a very great degree, upon the kind of land on which they are planted, and the 

 roots upon which the trees are worked. Where the land is light and much inclined to 

 sand, thorough cultivation is necessary to insure flue crops of fruit and healthy condition 

 of the trees, especially when worked upon the Pear root. If worked upon the Quince 

 root and standing upon clay lands, they also require good cultivation to produce good 

 results — but if, on the contrary, they stand upon deep, rich alluvial lands, such as river 

 bottoms, then, instead of high cultivation, or even tolerable cultivation, everything should 

 be done to hold them in check ; and to prevent as far as possible, a too luxuriant growth 

 of young and sappy wood, withhold the plow after the trees comes into bearing. Sow 

 to clover, root prune, if necessary. Prune out only where the limbs are chafing each 

 other ; and if, after all this, the trees still make unusual growth, then resort to the knife 

 and use it with an unsparing hand. Prune hack, instead of pruning out ; shorten in 

 branches, and thus check the luxuriant extension of the branches. This shortening in, 

 should be done from and after mid-summer, to secure the desired results. 



In regard to pruning the trees, we would say that wherever the land is well adapted to 

 a healthy growth of wood, the tops should be so pruned as to give the root a sufficient 

 preponderance to furnish sap enough to make a due proportion of new wood, besides fur- 

 nishing a sufficient quantity to make a full crop of fine fruit. If the top is left unpruned 

 altogether, the root and the top will keep pace with each other, and the fruit, after a few 

 years, will be of quite inferior quality. If we simply wished to grow wood, there would 

 be but little necessity for pruning ; but as we wish to grow fruit in addition, we must 

 give the root suflicent preponderance for that purpose. 



I 



Tlie Peter Wylle Grape, No. 1— Its Parentage. 



A. P. Wylie, M. D. of South Carolina, who has spent the best part of a lifetime with 

 experimenting in hybridizing the grape, thus writes to the Rtiral Carolinian ot the above 

 named grape — one of his hybrids — Peter Wylie No. 1 : 



PfiA-entanf \ P'emale— Halifax and Foreign, No. \.} „ 

 ra/ieniage. -j jjak—Ddaware and Foreigji, No. 8. ) -^''■ 



1. 



The first is an oblong blue grape, the latter a dark red grape. 



This hybrid bore, when three years old, for the first time in 1807. In the spring of 1868 

 it was almost destroyed by cattle, so that I had to re-instate it from cuttings. It was one 

 of the most rapid and vigorous growers of about fifty of the same cross in the same nurs 



