The Pears to Grow in a Home Garden — By J. r. Mattem, ek* 



HOW, BY THE PROPER SELECTION OF VARIETIES AND CAREFUL STORING, ONE CAN HAVE RAW PEARS FROM 

 MIDSUMMER UNTIL MARCH — GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THE TREES BY CULTIVATION, PRUNING, ETC. 



IN NOTHING 

 else that grows 

 and in no con- 

 fection made 

 can you get the refresh- 

 ing acids, the rich 

 spiciness, the honeyed 

 sweetness and deli- 

 cacy of flavor which 

 you get in the finer 

 varieties of pears that 

 you may grow in 

 your own garden. 

 They are as whole- 

 some as apples. With 

 proper selection of 

 varieties and careful 

 storing you may have 

 these pears raw from 

 midsummer until 

 March, and of course 

 there are dozens of 

 ways of putting them 

 up in preserves and 

 butters and jellies as 

 well as canning them. 

 The trees are as beau- 

 tiful as many shade 

 trees. Enough to supply your family 

 may be produced on ground space the size 

 of your dining-room. 



Enough pears for your use may mean two 

 bushels or it may mean fifty bushels. In 

 a fruit garden of less than six hundred 

 square yards, two to four bushels of pears 

 will be about enough in proportion to the 

 other fruits that should be raised. In a 

 small Southern garden aim to grow two 

 bushels. In a Northern garden grow at 

 least twice this quantity. Two trees 

 should produce two bushels in three to six 

 years after they are planted. 



In a larger garden containing half an 

 acre or an acre, you should grow eight or 

 ten bushels. Count on your trees produc- 

 ing a bushel each when they are tr :ee to six 

 years old, and plant one tree for <:ach bushel 

 of fruit you think you need. After six or 

 eight years these trees will give you more 

 fruit than you require, but perhaps the 

 neighbors will help you out, or you even 

 may deign to accept money from the regular 

 market for the surplus ! 



Pear trees are erect growers, and tw r o 

 trees in an eighth-acre garden, or eight to 

 ten trees in a half acre garden, occupy only 

 a small part of your valuable ground. The 

 trees may be set within ten feet of one an- 

 other when dwarfs are planted, or within 

 twenty feet when standard trees are planted. 

 In orchards standard trees usually are set 

 in rows thirty feet apart, and in the row the 

 trees are spaced from fifteen to twenty feet. 

 They may be closer than this in gardens. 



For nearly all gardens I much prefer 

 dwarf pear trees to standard trees. The 

 dwarfs are so much better suited to the 

 cultural methods convenient in gardens, 

 and they require about the same treatment 

 as trees and plants of other fruits planted in 



A late-blooming pear of excellent 

 Winter Nelis 



gardens, while standard trees demand dif- 

 ferent treatment. Dwarfs bear sooner, and 

 during the first ten or fifteen years they pro- 

 duce more fruit to the square foot of ground 

 that is occupied. The only reason why any 

 standard trees at all should be used is be- 

 cause certain most excellent varieties do not 

 thrive when budded on the dwarf roots. 

 The varieties suited to each type of tree are 

 indicated in the accompanying table. 



Dwarf pear trees are made by budding 

 ordinary pear wood of regular varieties on 

 quince roots. The slow-growing roots 

 never let the trees get very big, but do not 

 interfere at all with the fruit. Chafeing 

 under the restraint in growth, as it may be 

 expressed, the trees utilize their energies 

 in making fruit in large quantities and of 

 splendid quality. When these dwarf trees 

 receive good care they begin to bear almost 

 immediately after they are planted in your 

 garden. Some fruit will be set the second 

 year, and you may confidently expect good 

 crops the third and fourth years. 



The dwarf trees require more care in 

 pruning, but this makes little difference in 

 a garden, where each tree is watched over 

 and mothered. One man said that he did 

 not care for dwarfs because they failed 

 sooner than standard trees — his standards 

 were still doing well at two hundred and 

 forty years old, but the dwarfs were dying 

 out at a hundred and eighty years of age. 

 It is well known that pear trees live a 

 long time, yet I should set the limit of a 

 dwarf tree's usefulness at twenty to fifty 

 years. 



243 



The productive 



ife maybe length- 

 ened a great deal 

 by a method 

 culled " lipping." 

 This consists of slit- 

 ting the bark and 

 wood to a depth of 

 half an inch or so, 

 engthwise of the tree, 

 for three or four in- 

 ches, were the pear 

 wood joins the quince. 

 Then this point on 

 the trunk is set under 

 ground six to eight 

 inches, and during 

 the natural 

 process of 

 ealingthe 

 cuts and 

 callous- 

 ing, a 

 n e w 

 set of 

 roots is 

 thrown out from the 

 pear wood above the 

 quince wood. 



These roots grow 

 slowly during the years the quince roots 

 are thrifty, but when the quince roots 

 begin to fail, the pear roots develop and 

 give you a semi-standard tree. I recom- 

 mend this practice for all who plant dwarf 

 pear trees. It makes for earlier bearing 

 even than usual. The slitting must be 

 done when the trees are planted, and the 

 trees must be set deeply. One year trees 

 are best. Try to buy them every time. 



Varieties must be chosen and set with 

 reference to cross pollination. The only 

 safe way is to plant at least two sorts, and 

 set the trees not more than a hundred feet 

 apart. The time of blooming has to be con- 

 sidered also because some varieties shed their 

 petals before the flowers of other varieties 

 are open. Local information on this point 

 is valuable. Lacking that, varieties may be 

 classified as early, mid-season and late 

 blooming. The first and last classes us- 

 ually w 7 ill not fertilize one another. The 

 middle class will likely fertilize and be fer- 

 tilized by either of the others. Anjou, 

 Howell, Flemish Beauty, Garber, LeConte 

 and Kieffer are known as early bloomers; 

 Vermont Beauty and Winter Nelis as late 

 bloomers. The other varieties named in 

 the table are intermediate. 



It is a real pleasure to select pear varie- 

 ties for home gardens. One does not need 

 to suppress natural preferences in favor of 

 appearance and shipping qualities, as for a 

 commercial orchard. Some varieties are 

 not very pretty, and cannot be shipped, but 

 the fruit is so tender and delicious that it is 

 ideal for the home garden. 



The varieties named in the table are all 

 European sorts. They thrive in the North. 

 That is, they do well north of about latitude 



