AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
147 
ceedings,” their ipse dixit of what was “ flesh, 
fish, or good red herring,” on this momentous 
topic. And so it stands at this present writing, 
Now, if any of our sagacious readers can dis¬ 
cover in what we have said, or, what is still more 
reliant with themselves, in their own experience, 
any substantial facts on which to base their future 
action in dwarf pear culture, more than that the 
whole matter is enveloped in a bank of fog, or 
controversy, they certainly have achieved more 
than we have been enabled to do after an invest¬ 
ment of more money, time, “special” manures, 
and land in the enterprize than we at this mo¬ 
ment care to tell of. 
That individual plantations of dwarf pears to 
a limited extent have succeeded, in certain local¬ 
ities, and with certain varieties, with great care,and 
great comparative expense, we shall not deny ; but 
that the public are aware of any one individual 
dwarf orchard , where pears are successfully grown 
on the Quince, as a remunerating market crop, we 
shall be right glad to hear. Nor will we condemn 
the propagation, or the cultivation of the dwarf 
altogether. For him who has only a small gar¬ 
den, or but a limited space of ground, or who 
wants pears immediately, and is willing to invest 
a moderate outlay in a few trees for his own fami¬ 
ly supply, and is willing to encounter the pains and 
penalties of their purchase, cultivation, and the 
early deaths and disappointments of which a por¬ 
tion of them are sure to become the victims, we 
say : go on, and succeed, as best you can. The 
recompense may be worth the trial. 
MY DWARF PEARS DO NOT SUCCEED. 
Nor, shall what we have said be left without a 
reason : The dwarf pear being budded on the 
Quince root, that root requires Quince culture, and 
the Quince is far from being a universal grower 
on our soils. In some localities it flourishes freely. 
In others it is more or less refractory. As a mat¬ 
ter of course, the pear thus Quince-grown is likely 
to do better or worse, as the soil in which it is 
planted is congenial, or not, to the Quince. But, 
to our apprehension, there is a still more cogent 
objection ; the pear is a free-growing, open-pored 
wood, drawing, in its natural condition, largely of 
sap from its own vigorous, expanding root. The 
Quince, on the contrary, has a close, compact 
wood, its sap vessels, or pores are small, and its 
sap more sluggish in action, fed through the fibrous 
spongioles of its contracted and home-bound roots. 
There is, consequently, an incompatibility in those 
two widely discordant woods to unite and consti¬ 
tute a perfectly combined tiunk through which the 
root sap of the one can flow, by way of the imper¬ 
fect embrace, into the wood, and leaf of the other ; 
and so back, from the outer and upward leaf of the 
pear, down its branching wood and trunk, to the 
root of the Quince. Such difficulty, in our judg¬ 
ment, tells the whole story. That a very compact 
pear wood may connect more kindly with an un¬ 
commonly open pored Quince, so as to make an 
exception to the rule, we will not deny ; but, as a 
principle, we stand convinced in our own theory, 
which, we still contend, is fortified by experience. 
We have said our say and so it may rest, until 
a newer light than we have yet seen, shall con¬ 
vict us of error. 
incidental remarks. 
The upshot, then, of our conclusions, is that the 
pear is a fruit of uncertain and precarious growth, 
and duration. More liable to casualty by dis¬ 
eases not understood—of which the various kinds 
of blight are far the most destructive—and uncon¬ 
genial to many soils, and positions, it can not be 
safely undertaken to any extent except in well 
tried localities. The finer varieties have proved 
far more uncertain than the rougher, and less val¬ 
uable—the latter retaining their health, vigor, and 
bearing, while the others, with exceptions, how¬ 
ever, become diseased, and prematurely die. For 
a family luxury, almost any pains and expense may 
be tolerated to acquire them ; but as a market 
fruit, an investment in a pear orchard may, as a 
general proposition, be questioned. For the last 
twelve, or fifteen years innumerable pear orchards, 
both on their own stocks, and the Quince, have 
been planted. Pears—choice ones too—are much 
more abundant as a household fruit, than former¬ 
ly ; but in market, good pears are scarce, and dear 
as ever ; and the common chokey puckery things 
are not worth either cooking or eating, a good 
apple being far better for either. We can name 
scores of extensive pear orchards planted out with 
high hopes and anticipations within the past ten 
years, and have since seen them scattered, root, 
and branch, or if they still exist in name, a few 
struggling survivers only mark the ruin which dis¬ 
ease and death has made among them. We speak 
now of the better classes of pears, while a man 
would be foolish to plant out wildings for grinding 
into “ perry,” or raising “ choke-pears ” for mar¬ 
ket. 
To sum up : Let every land holder, and house¬ 
keeper with garden room sufficient, plant out his 
Tysons, Bloodgoods, Osband’s Summer, or oth¬ 
er sure early kinds, for the first of their season. 
Let these be followed by the luscious and noble 
Bartlett, for early Autumn. Succeed those with 
the Buffum, Flemish Beauty, Virgalieu,—if it will 
grow healthily—Louise Bonne of Jersey, Sheldon 
and Seckel, for the later ones ; and close in with 
the Winter Nelis, Glout Morceau, Lawrence, and 
Easter Beurre, for late keeping—all, or either of 
them, as you may prefer ; or, these uncongenial 
to your soil and position, substitute others which 
will do better. Let the dwarf have its place also, 
if it will succeed. Seasonably picked, and 
properly laid away, a single variety will be in 
eating one to three weeks of the Summer, and 
early and late Autumn pears, while the Winter 
kinds will last for months. Plant well, cultivate 
thoroughly, manure richly, and prune sparingly 
your standard trees. Do the same to your dwarfs, 
with the exception of pruning, in which you may 
pinch, cut, and scissor to your heart’s content and 
the exhausting of your patience. If the standards 
succeed at all, they will last you till you become 
an Octogenarian, or even a score of years beyond 
it, and then be left as a legacy to your heirs, a 
lasting and perennial good to each, and all; while 
your dwarfs may live just as long as they choose 
to do ; and if they die suddenly, you must have a 
sufficient stock of philosophy on hand not to be 
hurt by the disappointment. 
We shall next proceed to the Cherry, Peach, 
and other fruits. 
--—«afit n. — p-o- ■ ■ ■ 
Varieties of Apples. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
I agree with your remarks on the different va¬ 
rieties of apple trees. I think you have laid the ax 
at the root of the tree. I will give you my experi¬ 
ence, and hope others will add their testimony in 
order to substantiate the facts that you gave us 
in the February Agriculturist. 
Ten years ago, I commenced planting fruit trees, 
with more experience in sailing a vessel than in 
fruit growing. I procured a catalogue, ran over 
the list, and of course selected the best—that is, 
such as were called the best. I kept them tied 
to stakes for two or three years after planting, in 
order to have them stand alone. I cultivated the 
ground and manured it yearly, washed them, and 
was as carefal of them as a mother is of her in¬ 
fant child, and my wife said, my trees were al¬ 
ways ihe first object I saw when I came home 
My It. I. Greenings and Baldwins have done 
well. Last Spring, I measured a Greening tree 
that was 27 inches in circumference—and a Blue 
Pearmain only 15 inches, in soil equally as good. 
Unless I expected to live to be as old as Methuse¬ 
lah, I would not give the Blue Pearmain ship room. 
My Esopus Spitzenbergs have commence' 1 dying.. 
The bark turns black and dies, and the trees soon 
follow suit. The Newtown Pippin appears to be 
hardy. Out of 20 Spitzenbergs two only have 
escaped injury, and one half are dead. 1 
have some 40 varieties of apple trees which were 
wi ll planted in boles dug 6 ft. in diameter, and 18 
inches deep, with a load of loam put in each hole. 
It I were going to plant a new orchard, I should 
plant two-thirds Greenings and Baldwins. 1 have 
not lost a single Greening or Baldwin tree. 
The first thing 1 do after unpacking my trees, is 
to examine every one for borers. I next cut off 
all the bruised roots, and then wash the bodies with 
soapsuds in order to kill the lice. 
John Perene. 
Montville, Conn. 
Old Orchards—Defects in Pruning- 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
Afier plowing the ocean for about25 years I have 
bought a farm upon which is an orchard, about 50 
years old. Very little care has been taken of it. 
Large limbs have been sawed off, the stumps rot¬ 
ted, and now there are large rotten holes in them 
What can 1 do with these holes, and when shall 1 
prune so that the limbs will heal over] I have 
put a lot of hogs in to break up the ground. 
Henry I 1 '. Gifford. 
Falmouth, Mass., April 2, 1858. 
REMARKS. 
Such orchards as the above are very common 
Injudicious pruning has prematurely destroyed 
many of the trees. The first error was in not re¬ 
moving from the young trees all such branches as 
were likely to interfere with each other, and need 
after pruning. It is questionable whether large 
limbs should he cut off, even to give symmetry to 
the head. Though not approving of the non¬ 
pruning system, we may say that the most pro¬ 
ductive tree we ever saw (which yielded 60 bushels 
of fruit one year) was never pruned at all. Cer¬ 
tainly no one should go into the orchard during 
March or April and cut away thrifty branches at 
hap-hazard. Whenever a large branch must he 
pruned, let it he done neatly and smoothly, and 
close to the trunk, so that the new wood may close 
over and heal the wound. There is little hope ol 
reclaiming trees which have once been left with 
stubs on their side to rot away and let air and 
water to the heart. Some of the mure valuable 
ones may be protected with canvas bound on or 
nailed over, to keep out storms. We would plant 
out a new orchard at the same time, and prune 
and train to our liking. We have often recom¬ 
mended June and July as the best months for 
removing large branches, and would then coat the 
wound with gum shellac disolved in alcohol.—E b. 
■-— --—»<> »— —- - 
When an infidel production was submitted— 
probably by Paine—to Benjamin Franklin, in man¬ 
uscript, he returned it to the author with a letter 
from which the following is extracted : “ I would 
advise you not to attempt io unchain the tiger, hut 
to burn this piece before it is seen by any other 
person If men are so wicked with religion, what 
would they be without it ?” 
We may always joke when we please, if we are 
always careful to please when we joke. 
