THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 95 
century, iJwarfing the pear by growing it on the quince has been common 
in America. Dwarfing is recommended to secure several effects. Dwarf 
trees are more manageable than standard trees when the orchard area is 
small; dwarfing stocks are shallow rooted, and dwarfs, as a rule, do not 
need a soil so deep as do standard trees; pears grown on quince stocks are 
often larger, handsomer, and better in flavor and texture than those grown 
as standards; the trees come in bearing earlier. Dwarf pears, never very 
common on this continent, are not planted as much now as they were 
some years ago. At one time, orchards of these dwarfs were a familiar 
sight in New York. A dwarf orchard and even a dwarf tree is now seldom 
seen. The faults that have driven them out of New York are: The stocks 
used in dwarfing are not uniform, consequently the trees vary in vigor, 
health, habit of growth, and in time of maturity; nurserymen find that 
the stocks vary greatly in ease of propagation either from cuttings or layers; 
the quince stocks are of several varieties, difficult and expensive to obtain 
and, therefore, the orchard trees are expensive; dwarf trees require much 
more care in pruning, training, and cultivation than do standard trees; 
the cost of producing pears in a dwarf orchard is greater than in a plantation 
of standard trees, and the fruit does not command a much higher price; 
dwarf trees are commonly rated as less hardy than standard trees and are 
much shorter-lived; left to themselves, or if planted too deep, the cions 
take root and the trees are but half dwarf. Some of the objections to 
dwarf trees could be done away with by obtaining a variety of the quince 
which would dwarf the pear satisfactorily, which could be grown easily 
from cuttings or layers, and upon which most pears could be easily worked. 
A quince of this description is not in sight. 
There is great difference of opinion among growers as to what varieties 
may be successfully grown on quince stocks. Probably all will agree that 
the following, few indeed, are the best dwarfs in America: Beurré d’Anjou, 
Duchesse d’ Angouléme, Howell, Lawrence, Louise Bonne de Jersey, Eliza- 
beth, and White Doyenné. All other sorts, if to be grown on dwarfs, grow 
better when double worked. 
Almost all of the pears grown in America, as has been said, are standard 
trees. The stocks for these standard pears are nearly all imported from 
Europe under the name French stocks, although on the Pacific slope seedlings 
of oriental species are being used more and more. The French stocks are 
seedlings of vigorous forms of the common pear, P. communis. Efforts 
to grow stocks of this species in America usually fail because leaf-blight is 
