92 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 
best in rather heavy loams, clays, and even in silts. Many varieties show 
preferences for the several types of loam and clay, and the commercial 
grower must see to it that the varieties he plants are suited in their particu- 
lar soil preference. Hybrids between the common pear and the oriental 
pear — the Kieffer and its kin — grow well in much lighter soils than 
pure-bred sorts of the common pear, and, as a rule, find sands and gravels 
more to their liking than clays and heavy loams. Pears will stand rather 
more water in the soil than any other of their orchard associates, but a 
soil water-soaked for any great length of time in the growing season is a 
poor medium in which to grow pears. If, therefore, a soil is not sufficiently 
dry naturally it must be tile-drained. 
Pear soils must be fertile. All varieties of this fruit refuse to produce 
good crops in soils lacking an abundance of the several chemical elements 
of plant nutrition. Even the light soils on which Kieffer, Garber, and 
Le Conte seem to do best must be well stored with plant-food. This means 
that good pear land is costly. Soils that grow good pears usually grow 
good farm crops. Pears planted in a poor soil do not live but linger. Who 
has not seen short-wooded, rough, malformed, dwarfed, starved trees which 
have come to their wretched condition because planted on land not fertile 
enough for this fruit? The land-skinner who grows grass in his orchard 
usually comes to grief quickly. Pears start best in a virgin soil from which 
the forest has not been long removed; on the other hand, they are often 
hard to start on senile soils even though they have been heavily fertilized. 
Plenty of humus seems to stimulate pears. There is a prejudice against 
soils too rich, some holding that on overly rich land the growth is soft and 
sappy and therefore a good medium for the multiplication of the blight 
bacteria. This is mostly prejudice, but certain it if that culture and 
fertility should not be so managed that the growth continues late, and the 
trees go into the winter soft and tender to cold. 
Soils seem to have a profound influence on the flavor and texture of 
pears. In uncongenial soils the fruits are often so sour or astringent, dry 
or gritty, that the product is poor in quality; whereas the pears of the same 
variety in a soil to which it is suited are choicely good. A few varieties, 
as Bartlett, Clapp Favorite, and Seckel, grow well and produce fine fruit 
in a great diversity of soils, but most sorts do so much better in one 
soil than in another that it becomes a matter of prime importance in 
pear-growing to discover the particular adaptations of the varieties to be 
planted. To discover an ideal soil for a variety is about the highest 
desideratum in pear-growing. 
