PROPAGATION AND CULTURE OF THE PEAR. 



549 



1166. The propagation^ nursery culture, and choice of plants^ are mnch 

 the same for the pear as for the apple ; but the pear is never propagated by 

 cuttmgs, which root with difficulty, and as it is oftener required for walls 

 than tlie apple, it is more frequently flat trained for one, two, or three years 

 in the nursery. — The pear is grafted or budded on stocks raised from seeds 

 of the wild pear, or from any strong upright-growing kind, when the object 

 is large and durable plants ; and when dwarfs or conical trees are to be pro- 

 duced, the stock used is the quince, which is propagated for that purpose by 

 layers. The mountain ash, the medlar, the wild service, the white beam, 

 the common thorn, and the crab apple, have also been used as stocks for the 

 pear ; and hence, wherever there is a thorn hedge, or a wood or plantation 

 containing white service trees, white beam trees, or the mountain ash, pear 

 trees may be speedily grown in abundance. Grafting on the mountain ash is 

 practised at Ems and in other parts of Nassau (G. M, 1842, p. 228.), and is 

 said to retard the blossoming of the trees, and thus adapt them for a climate 

 where there is danger from spring frosts ; while the flesh and flavour of the 

 pear is said not to be affected. Grafting the pear on the thorn is known to 

 bring it into very early bearing, and to produce thriving trees on a strong 

 clayey soil, where neither stocks of the wild pear nor the quince would 

 thrive. The thorn stock, however, is said to render the fruit smaller and 

 harder. When the thorn is grafted either with the apple or pear, the scions 

 or buds require to be inserted as near the root of the stock as possible, in 

 order that the moisture of the soil may aid in the sv/elling of the stock, 

 which, notwithstanding this care, generally remains of smaller diameter 

 than the apple or pear grafted on it, and thus acts like the operation of 

 ringing in increasing the fruitfulness of the tree. The quince, as it grows 

 naturally in situations within the reach of water, is evidently the best stock 

 for moist soils, and it is also thought the best for clayey and light soft soils ; 

 while for chalky and silicious soils, and gravels of every kind, the pear 

 stock is recommended. The pear does not unite very readily with the 

 apple, and when it does so, is but of short duration. When grafted on a 

 pear stock, the plants have fewer fibrous roots, in proportion to the bulk and 

 age of the plant, than the apple on a crab stock ; and hence it requires more 

 care in taking up for removal, and in the nursery requires to be more fre- 

 quently transplanted than the apple. As quince stocks have more fibrous 

 roots than pear stocks, the pear on them is transplanted without difficulty. 



1167. Soil^ situation^ and final planting. — The pear grows naturally on a 

 much poorer and drier soil than the apple, but to produce large crops of 

 excellent fruit it requires like it a deep loamy soil on a dry subsoil. On a 

 wet subsoil the pear will do no good, and the remarks made under this head 

 (1148), in treating of the apple, are equally applicable to the pear. The 

 distances at which the pear ought to be planted against a wall may be some- 

 what greater than that for the apple, or from 25 to 80 feet against a wall 12 

 feet high (890), The distance against espaliers, and as dwarfs or cones on 

 dwarfing stocks, and in orchards, has been already given (902 and 908). 



11G8. The mode of hearing, pruning, and training the pear is much the 

 same as for the apple, but in most of the varieties, the spurs are somewhat 

 longer in being formed, being generally produced on two years' old wood, 

 instead of the former year's wood. The branches of standard pears are a so 

 less liable to cross each other than those of the apple, and hence pear tree 

 in an orchard require, comparatively with the apple, little pruning. 



