may. 
139 
shoots of the previous summer’s growth. The first appearance of this 
disease is in the spring, when small shrivelled black patches of bark 
shows on the young wood, and often through the whole tree, and during 
the summer the shoots thus tainted will entirely perish. It is next to 
impossible to entirely prevent this disease, but it is in our power to 
render the trees in a condition to resist its formidable and most 
disastrous effects. After a damp summer and autumn the wood is not 
matured, and the frost comes on while the sap vessels are still filled 
with their fluids, and thus the disease is engendered. Now it is 
evident the cause is the freezing of the sap in the unripened wood, 
therefore the object should be as a preventive—to adapt every means to 
get a short early summer’s growth, by avoiding strong manure, and by 
root pruning, stopping, and thorough drainage, especially avoiding 
moisture at the roots during the autumn, so that the wood will be well 
ripened, and the fruit buds well matured. 
Difference of opinion still exists in regard to the adaptability of the 
Quince stock for the growth of the Pear. As far as my experience goes 
in this matter, I think the Pear worked on the Quince only fit for a 
very small garden or for orchard houses, and it is evident only 
particular kinds will grow on the Quince for any length of time; others 
will scarcely exist, are unfit to bear fruit either in quantity or quality, 
and perish in the end; and if a uniform growth, fine fruit, and long- 
lived trees be sought for, it is better to use the Pear stock, and by 
judicious root pruning miniature trees in a productive state may be 
obtained equally as well as on the Quince stock, and for general 
purposes the Pear stock is to be preferred. 
In previous chapters, under the head of training , the formation of 
the trees was described, and here it will be necessary to consider the 
general treatment. The summer management ought to commence in 
Jnne by removing all superfluous shoots, and stop and thin all strong 
shoots growing from the spurs, leaving the terminal shoot to grow at 
will, for the purpose of conducting the sap from the centre of the tree - 
Make the young shoots or breast-wood sufficiently thin to admit the 
sun to the spurs, on which the formation of fruit-buds for the following 
season mainly depends. About this time, if the trees are feeble, the 
fruit should be thinned, more especially small and middle-sized 
varieties. There appears a wise provision in nature that the heavy 
sorts thin themselves to the quantity the trees are capable of bringing 
to perfection ; indeed it seldom happens that the large kinds, such 
as the Beurre Bose, Marie Louise, Van Mons Leonle Clerc, and Beurre 
Diel, set more than one or two fruits from the same truss of blossom. 
After Midsummer the trees should be again gone over, and the 
remaining shoots stopped and thinned if required, so that the fruit may 
have full exposure to the sun, and if the trees are bearing a moderate 
crop very little after growth will be made, but if such takes place it 
must be checked by stopping. 
The fruit of the Pear in trained trees is produced from natural spurs 
on the two year old wood, also on artificial spurs of many years’ 
standing; the latter should be kept short to the main shoot by always 
cutting close back to a fruit bud as soon as it is formed, and with those 
