648 



THE PEAR. 



summer. Such has several times been done, and its fulfilment may be 

 looked for with certainty in all trees that had not previously ripened 

 their wood.* 



So also it would and does naturally follow, that trees in a damp, rich 

 soil, are much more liable to the frozen-sap blight than those upon a 

 drier soil. In a soil over-moist or too rich, the pear is always liable to 

 make late second growths, and its wood will often be caught unripened 

 by an early winter. For this reason this form of blight is vastly more 

 extensive and destructive in the deep rich soils of the Western States 

 than in the drier and poorer soils of the East. And this will always be 

 the case in over-rich soils, unless the trees are checked in their luxuri- 

 ance by root-pruning. 



Again, those varieties of the pear which have the .habit of maturing 

 their wood early, are very rarely affected with the frozen-saj^ blight. 

 But late-growing sorts are always more or less liable to it, especially 

 when the trees are young, and the excessive growth is not reduced by 

 fruit-bearing. Every nurseryman knows that there are certain late- 

 growing sorts which are always more liable to this blight in the nursery. 

 Among these we have particularly noticed the Passe Colmar and the Eo- 

 relle, though when these sorts become bearing trees they are not more 

 liable than many others. The Seckel pear is less subject to blight than 

 others, which we attribute entirely to its habit of making short-jointed 

 shoots, and ripening its wood very early. 



To distinguish the blight of the frozen-sap from that caused by the 

 attack of the Scolytus pyri is not difficult. The effects of the latter 

 cease below the spot where the insect has perforated and eaten its bur- 

 row in the branch. The former spreads gradually down the branch, 

 which, when dissected, shows the marks of the poison in the discolora- 

 tion of the inner bark and the pith, extending down some distance below 

 the external marks of injury. If the poison becomes largely diffused in 

 the tree, it will sometimes die outright in a day or two ; but if it is only 

 slightly present, it will often entirely recover. The presence of black, 

 dry, shrivelled spots of bark on the branches, or soft sappy spots, as well 



* Since the above was written, we have had the pleasure of seeing a highly 

 interesting article by the Rev. H. W. Beecher, of Indiana, one of the most in- 

 telligent observers in the country. Mr. Beecher not only agrees in the main 

 with us, but he fortifies our opinion with a number of additional facts of great 

 value. We shall extract some of this testimony, which is vouched for by Mr. 

 B. , and for the publication of which the cultivators of pears owe him many 

 thanks. 



"Mr. R. Ragan, of Putnam Co., Ind., has for more than twelve years 

 suspected that this disease originated in the fall previous to the summer on which 

 it declares itself. During the last winter Mr. Ragan predicted the blight, as 

 will be remembered by some of his acquaintances in Wayne Co. , and in his pear- 

 orchards he marked the trees that would suffer, and pointed to the spot which 

 would be the seat of the disease, and his prognostications were strictly verified. 

 Out of his orchard of 200 pear-trees, during the previous blight of 1832, only 

 four escaped, and those had been transplanted, and had, therefore, made little 

 or no growth. 



"Mr. White, a nurseryman near Mooresville, Ind., in an orchard of over 

 150 trees, had not a single case of blight in the year 1844, though all around 

 him its ravages were felt. What were the facts in this case ? His orchard is 

 planted on a mould-like piece of ground, is high, of a sandy, gravelly soil: 

 earlier by a week than nursery soils in this country ; and in the summer of 1843, 

 his trees grew through the summer, ripened and shed their leaves early in the 

 fall, and during the warm spell made no second growth." 



