1864. 



THE ILLINOIS FARMER. 



115 



Profit of Dwaif Pear Culture. 



Has the success attending the culture of Dwarf 

 Pears in Western New York been such as to 

 promise profit if planted largely in orchards ? 



Sharpz — A neighbor of mine planted 104 dwarf 

 pears. The third year after planting he sold $50 

 wonh of fruit. Another neighbor put out 400 

 bearing tree?. The second year his crop brought 

 him S69 50 ; the third year he got but little from 

 it ; the fourth year |175 ; this last year he receiv- 

 ed $600 for his crop. Another neighbor planted 

 an acre and one-eighth with dwarf pears. Some 

 of these trees did not bear the past year, yet he 

 sold his crop of fifty barrels at $10 per barrel in 

 the orchard — the orchardist to pick the fruit, and 

 the purchaser furnish the barrels. 



I think nurserymen kave injured community by 

 selling trees so low that they are never cared for. 

 A man I know of bought trees for little or nothing, 

 and paid for them with what he did not think of 

 any value, and they are good for nothing now — 

 worse than nothing. If I can make a good hole in 

 a gentleman's purse when he comes to purchase 

 trees, I am sure he will thank me for it. I tell them 

 when they come to me and want to buy trees low, 

 that they had better not buy at all. 



J. J. TnoMAS — Years ago, I was led to adopt the 

 erroneous opinion that trees should only be planted 

 in gardens. Now I am fully convinced they ought 

 only to be planted in orchards. In gardens they 

 are often neglected — the vegetables are cultivated 

 but the trees are not. Hand hoeing and spade 

 culture does not answer. The quince roots extend 

 and the soil needs stirring. A dwarf pear orchard 

 ought to be as large as a corn field, and cultivated 

 as often or of tener — especially when they yield the 

 figures given here. Horse cultivation will produce 

 better trees. I would plant them 12 feet apart in 

 the field — would grow them in large fields and give 

 them horse culture. 



Sharps — I cultivated beans for two or three 

 years in my orchard ; but would not recommend it 

 as a practice. 



Fisher — These pear orchards that we have heard 

 from are, I suppose, the best pear orchards in the 

 country. It is not safe to base our recommenda- 

 tions upon their success. With me, with good 

 culture, dwarf pears would not pay $10 per acre. 

 I do not believe that we are warranted in believ- 

 ing that 10 acres can be cultivated and net the or- 

 chardist $200 per acre. I selected under P. Barry's 

 advice, 16 varieties for a family and market or- 

 chard. Nearly all of them were dwarfs. They are 

 fine, healthy trees. I have a gravelly loam soil 

 with a clay sub-soil. These trees have been trans- 

 planted five years ; and three-fourths of them have 

 not borne a pear. 



G. Ellwanqer — A difierent selection of varieties 

 is made when one plants for market, than is made 

 for an orchard for family use. 



Sharpk — If the gentleman will plant Duchesse 

 d'Angouleme and Louise Bonne de Jersey, 430 

 trees to the acre, they will produce for him a crop 

 that will bring the figure I have named. 



Judge La Rue — Has any gentleman grown such 

 crops five or ten years successively ; or in other 

 words, have dwarf pear orchards averaged such re- 

 sults that length of time ? 



Fisher — ^I can report only on hidf an acre. They 



have borne more or less for years. Trees all good 

 and healthy. I have 25 or .30 varieties — the Duch- 

 esse in considerable numbers, a few Seckles, and all 

 dwarfs. But I have had no such result in figures 

 as has been given here. 



Olmstead — In 1858 I planted 800 standard trees; 

 in 1850, 600 dwarfs. From the standards the past 

 year, I gathered 47 barrels ; from the dwarfs, seven 

 barrels. I sold the whole at $10 per barrel. The 

 standard trees cost me $35 per 100 ; the dwarfs, 

 $30 per 100. The crops of beans taken from the 

 ground have paid for cultivation. The crop of 

 fruit the past year has paid the cost of trees and 

 planting. 



Smith — I planted, about four years ago, 4,000 

 pear trees ; three-fourths of them were dwaifs. — 

 The latter were planted 10 feet apart; the former 

 20 feet apart. Crops grown on the ground between 

 the trees paid for the culture. During the four 

 years these trees have not produced five bushels. 

 They did bear some fruit in spite of all I could do. 

 They should never be allowed to bear fruit when 

 only three or four years old. 



Fisher. — I do not wish to be understood as be- 

 ing dissatisfied with my pear planting, nor with 

 what the trees have done for me ; but I am not 

 disposed to let the figures given here go out as be- 

 ing what every man may expect who plants dwarf 

 pears. 



J. J. Thomas — There are such orchards as 10 

 year old dwarf pear orchards. I may name Mr. 

 Yeoman's orchard of one-third of an acre, that has 

 borne at different times $400 and $500 worth of 

 pears — all from ond-third of an acre. One year he 

 sold his crop at $35 per barrel. 



Fish — The gentleman named by J. J. Thomas 

 sold $500 worih of pears from one-third of an acre 

 one year. 



Sharpk — He sold in two years over $1,000 worth 

 of pears from the third of an acre. They were 

 Duchesse d'Aagouleme. The two varieties I named 

 will give the orchardist in five or six years from 

 planting $400 to $500 per acre. I would plant 8 

 by 12 feet apart. 



At this point a gentlemen read a letter he had 

 recently received from Mr. Yeoman, above named, 

 in which he stated that his crop the past year was 

 70 barrels, which sold at from $8 to $20 per barrel. 



Ainsworth — ^I sold the crop from one acre of 

 Virgalieus and Seckles for over $400 ; they aver- 

 aged $15 per barrel. 



Frost — I think it will be found to be the experi- 

 ence of most persons who have cultivated pears 

 several — say eight or ten — ^years, that they have 

 proved a total failure. 



Ellwangbr — I have cultivated pears twenty 

 years, and cannot agree with Mr. Frost. There is 

 profit in pear culture. — Report of N. Y. F. S. Att. 

 in Rural New Yorker. 



Sheep Chewing Tobacco. 



Chester Baker, of Lafayette, Onondaga county, 

 New York — an experienced flock-master and 

 as truthful a man as lives — ^informs us that he 

 has fed thirty-two Merino breeding ewes with 

 tobacco stems all winter — ^^ving them about as 

 many daily, as a man can carry at once in his arms ! 

 From the first the ewes greedily ate oflF the small 

 and damaged leaves from the tops of the stems 



