786 
November 22 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
uralisms 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL GROUNDS 
The Kieffer. Pear Outlook. — “I have 
a young orchard of Kieffer pears com¬ 
ing into bearing. No cannery will use 
them here now. A few buyers were 
paying 15 cents a basket for them to 
ship off. What will it be when all the 
young orchards come into bearing? Will 
there be an outlet at the enormous price 
of 15 cents?” 
The above wail from a Maryland cor¬ 
respondent is a fair exposition of one 
phase of the Kieffer pear problem. When 
Kieffers are first dumped on a local mar¬ 
ket nobody seems to want them, or to 
know how to use them if they should 
chance to buy, but they still go at paying 
prices in markets where their special 
qualities are known. The market quo¬ 
tations at this writing are $1 to $1.50 a 
barrel for ordinary grades, while large 
showy fruits retail on the fruit stands 
for five cents each, and find appreciative 
takers if well colored and properly 
ripened, as the larger the fruit the bet¬ 
ter the quality is a general rule among 
Chinese pear hybrids. No considerable 
quantity of prime large Kieffers seems 
to reach the market, and no quotations 
are to be had on selected grades. The 
writer has not been able to find where 
the fruit-stand people get their finest 
Kieffers, as most crops of this variety 
are barreled and sold with little or no 
attempt at careful grading. Sooner or 
later the proper method of growing, 
grading and marketing Kieffers will be 
worked out, and this distinct and useful 
fruit will have a better footing among 
consumers than at present. It is now 
comparable in ease of culture and low 
average quality with the Ben Davis 
among apples and the Elberta among 
peaches. We advise all prospective pear 
growers to go slow in planting Kieffers 
until they have well studied its future 
market prospects, and are prepared to 
give it special attention regarding suit¬ 
ability of soil and care in culture. 
But little has been said regarding the 
best manner of pruning the Kieffer to 
secure the best fruits. Number and con¬ 
sequent bulk in the barrel rather than 
large individual size seem to character¬ 
ize the present output. A thrifty Kieffer 
will so overload itself that the branches 
break or gradually bend to the ground 
if the tree is not headed too high. In 
our vicinity Kieffer growers have ceased 
to prop overloaded branches, as a break¬ 
age at the point of support is almost cer¬ 
tain to occur. Too many branches seem 
to be left on the trees. They shoot up 
thin and willowy, fruit spurs fail to de¬ 
velop about the crowded bases, but. tend 
to form on the three-year wood far out 
from the trunk, and the thick-set fruits, 
which are seldom thinned, soon drag the 
branch away from its natural vertical 
position, and often bend or break it be¬ 
fore the crop is matured. If the branches 
are well thinned as the tree comes into 
bearing, so that there is abundance of 
light and air throughout the head and 
the new growth cut back every Spring 
to within six or eight inches of the pre¬ 
vious year’s wood, strong spurs will 
soon develop in the older portion of the 
branches, and any fruits set will likely 
be carried without twisting the tree out 
of shape. If the clusters are thinned to 
one pear each and the remaining fruits 
spaced to eight inches or more apart 
along the branches the result is likely 
to surprise a careless grower. Fig. 319 
shows a young Kieffer on the Rural 
Grounds planted six years and carrying 
its third crop of 89 pears, weighing when 
picked, nearly 40 pounds. The tree 
stands in poor shallow soil on a stony 
hillside, and is only 2V 2 inches in diam¬ 
eter at base, and makes an annual 
growth of about three feet, which is cut 
back to six inches each season. It has 
never been cultivated, but a circle two 
feet across is kept free from grass and a 
handful of chemical fertilizer or bone 
and some wood ashes strewn about each 
Spring. It is not easy to find better 
specimens of the Kieffer in appearance 
or quality than those taken from this 
tree, and it is perfectly able to carry its 
load of fruit without getting out of 
shape. Several other varieties of pears 
were planted at the same time, but most 
of them in a more favorable location. 
Among the kinds are Bartlett, Law¬ 
rence, Anjou and Hovey. The net re¬ 
sult at this writing is one Lawrence 
fruit, ’way ahead in quality of any of 
the hundreds of fruits produced during 
the last three years by the Kieffers and 
Le Contes of the same age, but wofully 
little of it. Of course the highly desir¬ 
able varieties above enumerated, as well 
as others since planted, will bear in due 
time and the Kieffers and their kindred 
be discarded, but the satisfaction will 
remain of having tolerable pears in 
quantity years before these slow-coach 
kinds produced anything. A few trees 
of the Chinese pears, Kieffer and Le 
Conte in the North, Le Conte and Gar¬ 
ber in the South, should be included in 
the fruit plantings about every new 
homestead, as few other pome fruits 
yield such quick returns. Kieffer trees 
would be more satisfactory to the grow¬ 
er if not headed so high by nurserymen. 
As received for planting they are very 
attractive in appearance, with their neat 
little heads and long smooth trunks, and 
no one cares to cut them back to start 
new branches sufficiently near the soil. 
The Kieffer has such a Lombardy-poplar 
style of growth at all times that low 
heading and close pruning at the start 
greatly contribute to fruitfulness and 
ease of subsequent management. 
Big Damages for a Rose Garden.— 
Two notable suits against a great rail¬ 
road corporation for damage to a rose 
garden have just been settled by the 
payment to the claimants of the consid¬ 
erable sum of $20,000. The offer of this 
sum was made by the railroad after the 
referee had awarded a somewhat larger 
amount to forestall further legal expenses 
incident to an appeal and retrial, and 
seems, on the whole, to be a very sensi¬ 
ble conclusion to an unusual case. The 
rose garden in question us the very suc¬ 
cessful one at Wood’s Holl, Mass., con¬ 
ducted by M. H. Walsh, probably the 
leading hardy rose grower and breeder 
of new varieties in this country. For 
many years Mr. Walsh has received the 
highest awards whenever he has com¬ 
peted at an exhibition, and has origi¬ 
nated many valuable varieties, stocks 
of which were being worked up for sale. 
The damage was caused by smoke from 
a tarred roof and other materials from 
an old round-house nearby, which the 
railroad employees razed and burned 
one breezy May day last year. Most 
gardeners, sooner or later, learn by ob¬ 
servation or sad personal experience the 
deadly effect of the fumes and smoke 
from tar and similar compounds on ten¬ 
der vegetation, but it may be imagined 
the railroad people might go merrily 
ahead with their big bonfire regardless 
of the discomfort, and ignorant of the 
serious damage caused by the suffocating 
billows of smoke, charged with caustic 
chemicals. The roses were practically 
ruined, and the manager and owner 
promptly brought suits against the rail¬ 
road company with the above result. The 
outcome will doubtless be viewed with 
satisfaction by every grower of choice 
plants. A railroad corporation may do 
many things not approved by fair-mind¬ 
ed individuals, but it may not smoke 
out a private rose garden without being 
responsible for adequate damages. 
w. v. F. 
Future of the Kieffer Pear. 
My father, J. S. Collins, brother and 
myself have about 100 acres in Kieffer 
pear trees now fruiting. We shall gath¬ 
er this year about 115,000 five-eighths 
baskets of good merchantable pears. 
Many of these pears have been loaded 
in bulk and sent to Cincinnati, Chicago, 
Cleveland and other large cities. We 
have sent up to date 36 carloads packed 
either in boxes or barrels to Liverpool, 
London and Glasgow, I might state with 
very satisfactory results, with the excep¬ 
tions c? few shipments which seemed 
to arrive in poor condition, and of course 
sold low. The markets in London and 
Liverpool were well supplied last Sum¬ 
mer with apples and pears. They are 
now selling in these two places weekly 
from 20,000 to 35,000 packages of apples 
and pears. If people did not export the 
Kieffer I do not know what they would 
export, because there are not enough 
other varieties of pears grown in such 
large quantities as would warrant ship¬ 
ping them. We often see quotations of 
Bartlett and Anjou pears sold in small 
quantities, say 15 to 25 boxes at a time. 
It seems to me that you want to raise 
enough of any one thing to sell a car¬ 
load at a time. 
In the Philadelphia and New York 
markets the Kieffer pear has sold low 
this season, I think owing to the large 
crop of apples throughout the country, 
and also owing to the coal strike in 
Pennsylvania. They usually use from 
one to three carloads of pears in the coal 
districts, and of course the miners being 
out of employment this season did not 
have money to buy fruit with. It is 
hard to predict whether the growing of 
Kieffers for the market is overdone or 
not. There are thousands and thousands 
of trees too young yet to bear, and when 
they do bear, if the old orchards hold 
on and do as well as they have done in 
the past, it would look as though the 
Kieffer business was a little overdone. 
However, we do not feel discouraged, 
and will plant more this year. 
New Jersey. artiiur j. collins. 
SEVEN TO ONE 
Sometimes the weight goes 
up that way when taking 
Scott’s Emulsion. Seven 
pounds of new, healthy flesh 
from a one pound bottle of 
Scott’s Emulsion is on record. 
Scott’s Emulsion brings 
everything to its aid; good 
appetite, strong digestion, rich 
blood, new body strength, and 
above all the power to get all 
the good out of ordinary food. 
For those who are in need 
of more flesh there is nothing 
better. Thin folks—try it! 
We'll send you a little to try, if you like. 
SCOTT & BOWNE, 409 Pearl street, New York 
I Will Cure You of 
Rheumatism 
Else No Money Is Wanted. 
After 2,000 experiments I have learned 
how to cure rheumatism. Not to turn 
bony joints into flesh again; that is im¬ 
possible. But I can cure the disease al¬ 
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I ask for no money. Simply write me 
a postal and I will send you an order on 
your nearest druggist for six bottles of 
Dr. Shoop’s Rheumatic Cure, for every 
druggist keeps it. Use it for a month 
and, if it succeeds, the cost is only $5.50. 
If it fails, I will pay your druggist my¬ 
self. 
I have no samples, because any medi¬ 
cine that can affect rheumatism quickly 
must be drugged to the verge of danger. 
I use no such drugs, and it is folly to 
take them. You must get the disease 
out of the blood. 
My remedy does that, even in the most 
difficult, obstinate cases. No matter 
how impossible this seems to you, I 
know it and I take the risk. I have 
cured tens of thousands of cases in this 
way, and my records show that 39 out 
of 40 who get those six bottles pay glad¬ 
ly. I have learned that people in gen¬ 
eral are honest with a physician who 
cures them. That is all I ask. If I fail 
I don’t expect a penny from you. 
Simply write me a postal card or let¬ 
ter. I will send you my book about 
"heumatism, and an order for the medi¬ 
cine. Take it for a month, as it won’t 
narm you anyway. If it fails, it is free, 
and I leave the decision with you. Ad¬ 
dress Dr. Shoop, Box 570, Racine, Wis. 
Mild cases, not chronic, are oft-en 
cured by one or two bottles. At all 
druggists. 
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