The Pear — Early Fruitfulness Induced. 361 
from attempting to cultivate the pear on account of the length of 
time it requires, usually, to bring it into a bearing state; it being 
a very common saying, that if you do plant a pear tree, you need 
not expect to live to see it bear; or, as it has been said poeti- 
cally — 
He that plants pears, 
Plants for his heirs. 
This obstacle in the way of the general culture of the pear has, 
as we have remarked, awakened a spirit of investigation on the 
subject, that, so far, has been attended with the most cheering suc- 
cess. 
Root Pruning and Growing on Quince Stocks, after being 
thoroughly tested by the most skilful and practiced fruit-growers 
for eight or ten years, have been found eminently successful in 
obviating the objections we have mentioned. A treatise on the 
subject, the result of eight years, careful experience, by T. Rivers, 
of the Sawbridgeworth Nurseries, near London, was read before 
the London Horticultural Society in 1840, and shortly after pub- 
lished in Hovey's Magazine of Horticulture, in this country. 
Mr. Rivers states, in his treatise, that he was led to the dis- 
covery of the benefits of this system in the endeavor to test his 
specimen trees. His object was to confine them to a small space, 
and promote early fruitfulness. After resorting to several me- 
thods, such as planting in brick pits, plunging in large pots, &c., 
all of which were expensive and unsatisfactory, the idea of frequent 
transplanting occured to him, from observing that some apple trees 
in his nursery, that had been removed one or two consecutive 
years, had " acquired a stunted and prolific habit, making abun- 
dance of bloom-buds, and bearing profusely." These trees, he 
found, had no large feeding roots, but only a mass of fibres. " It 
then occured to me," he says, " if I could keep the roots of my 
pear trees in a fibrous state, by frequent removals, I should make 
them acquire the stunted and prolific habit I had so long observed 
in the apples. In attempting to remove my pear trees, a second 
thought occured, that it would be less trouble to dig a trench round 
them, and cut all their roots at a certain distance from the stem: 
and this completely fulfilled my anticipations. I have pruned thus 
radically for five seasons, and with the most satisfactory results." 
This is the basis of this new and improved method of fruiting the 
pear. At the time this treatise was published, it excited great 
interest, and since then it has been thoroughly put to the test, and 
the results, as far as we have been able to learn, have been highly 
satisfactory. We are familiar with numerous instances where the 
pear is successfully cultivated, as dwarfs, on quince stocks, stand- 
ing 6 feet apart, and bearing abundantly. We cannot say that 
we have seen root pruning fairly tested. 
