1592 



ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 



after the graft is made, tlie wound must 

 be entirely covered over with grafting 

 wax. As soon as the hot wax is spread 

 on, the graft should be dropped into a 

 tub of water in order to cool it imme- 

 diately. See Fig. 1. 



Seedling pear stock is not extensively 

 grown in this country, owing to the diffi- 

 culty of securing the seed. Nurserymen 

 import their stock from France, and per- 

 sons desiring to do their own propagating 

 may purchase seedlings from the nur- 

 serymen at reasonable prices. If pear 

 seeds are procurable, it is easy to grow 

 the stock by stratifying them in sand 

 and allowing them to freeze, and other- 

 wise treating them like apple seed. The 

 management of the seedlings and scions 

 and time of doing the grafting, is the 

 same as for the apple. For time, man- 

 ner and precautions in planting the 

 grafts, the reader is referred to the dis- 

 cussion under apples. 



Pear trees may be both budded and 

 top-worked in precisely the same way as 

 that described for apples. 



Dwarf Pears 



If pear trees are grown upon pear 

 roots, either by budding or grafting, they 

 are known as standards. When worked 

 on the quince root, the pear is easily 

 grown as a dwarf. It then comes into 

 bearing earlier, and since the trees are 

 small, the fruit can be easily thinned and 

 sprayed and therefore should be of a 

 high quality. Dwarfs require more care 

 than the ordinary standards, however, 

 and they should not be planted unless 

 the owner understands this fact and is 

 willing to give the attention that they 

 need. Although the trees are by nature 

 dwarfed, since they are worked on a 

 smaller growing species, they neverthe- 

 less tend to become half-standard if left 

 to themselves. A dwarf pear tree should 

 never reach a greater height than 12 feet. 

 In order to keep it down to this stature, 

 it is often necessary to remove from one- 

 half to two-thirds of the annual growth 

 late each winter. 



A good dwarf pear tree is one in which 

 the union with the quince stock is very 

 close to the ground. When the tree is 



planted this union should be from four 

 to six inches below the surface, after the 

 ground has settled. It is the common be- 

 lief that dwarf pears do not live as long 

 as the standards, but this is not neces- 

 sarily true. The variety that is oftenest 

 grown as a dwarf is the Duchess. Other 

 varieties propagated as dwarfs are Louise 

 Bonne, Anjou, Glairgeau, Manning Eliza- 

 beth, and to a less extent, Bartlett, 

 Seckel and KiefCer. Both standard and 

 dwarf pears are^ ready to be planted in 

 the orchard after growing in the nursery 

 for one or two seasons, the two-year olds 

 being preferred. 



See article on Propagation, under Ap- 

 ples. 



W. L. Howard, 

 Columbia, Mo. 



Planning the Pear Orchard 



In no phase of pear culture is the skill 

 and experience of the orchardist more 

 thoroughly brought to the test than in 

 the preparation of the plans for the orch- 

 ard. He must not only decide upon the 

 varieties and the relative importance of 

 each, and the distance apart of the trees, 

 but must also consider the relative time 

 of ripening of the fruit, so that it can be 

 marketed with reasonable convenience 

 with the facilities at hand; and he must 

 also bear in mind questions of pollination, 

 so as to have mutually fertile varieties, 

 which bloom at the same time, planted 

 near together. 



In all cases, when planting out an 

 orchard of an acre or more in extent, it 

 is best to make a preliminary survey of 

 the ground, and then draw up a prelimi- 

 nary plan on paper. This need not neces- 

 sarily be a plat, but should show the 

 number of rows and the number of trees 

 of each variety in each row. Dwarf pears 

 are ordinarily planted at distances be- 

 tween 8 and 16 feet apart each way, stan- 

 dard pears about 20 feet apart, and Orien- 

 tal pears about 30 feet apart In the 

 writer's own orchards the trees have been 

 planted on a rectangular system, that is, 

 instead of planting the trees 20 feet apart 

 and in rows the same distance apart, in 

 squares, they have been planted 16 feet 

 part in rows 24 feet apart. The reason 



