THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 97 
PEAR ORCHARDS AND THEIR CARE 
Perhaps no tree-fruit is more exacting in care than the pear. Young 
trees, in particular, must be well cared for and more or less coddled if any 
factor in environment is adverse. Almost any young orchard of this fruit 
becomes moribund if the owner settles down to self-satisfied complacency. 
As the trees come into full bearing, the several items of culture need not 
be so intensive. A perfect pear-orchard is about the consummation of good 
fruit-growing. But a perfect orchard of this fruit is seldom to be found, 
for, sooner or later, blight is certain to take its toll. Because of blight, 
the culture of no other fruit is attended with more frequent or keener 
disappointments. Today a man may walk in his orchard with adoration, 
as an artist walks in a beautiful landscape. Tomorrow, blight may blast 
the fairest trees. Pear-growing, thus, becomes a good deal of a gamble, 
and the boundaries within which a fruit-grower’s ambitions must be 
confined as to acreage must be more closely drawn than with other fruits. 
In most pear regions, the risks are too great to venture all in the culture 
of this fruit. 
It is an uphill task to grow pears on land not well fitted before planting. 
A young pear-tree is about the least self-assertive of any of the tree-fruits. 
For the first year or two young pears seem to have almost no internal 
push, and are unable to get much of a start out of any but land in the 
best of tilth. A bare, stony, starved soil is no place for a young pear. 
The ground should be well tilled almost or quite to the depth the trees are 
to be planted, otherwise the roots seek the upper layers of earth where 
there is least resistance and food is most available. If the drainage is 
faulty, subsequent treatment is well-nigh useless. Sometimes retentive 
soils in which drainage is good most of the year but slow at planting time 
may be brought into condition by plowing a back-furrow along the line of 
each row in the direction of surface drainage to carry away the surface 
water. Under no circumstances should a tree be planted in a hole in which 
water is liable to stand about the roots. If possible, the land should be 
prepared a year in advance by putting in a hoed crop, after which it should 
be plowed deeply in the fall and pulverized well in the spring, and the 
trees planted as promptly as possible. 
Land suitable for growing pears does not need to be fertilized for 
young trees. It is not too much to say that land which will not grow 
good wheat or corn is hardly fit for pears, although lighter soils fertilized 
as the trees come in bearing grow some varieties very well; but even on 
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