254 
THE CULTIVATOR 
August. 
Thoughts on the Culture of Pears. 
Editors Go. Gent. —Your correspondent R. It S., in 
your last vol. p. 350, closed an article on pear culture 
by saying: “ this pear question is now open, and we 
hope to see it fairly and freely discussed.” Suffer me 
to ask my fellow fruit culturist, will it not be well for 
us, after what has been written on this subject, to rest 
awhile, and collect the facts which more extended ob¬ 
servations will give us, before we assume to know all 
that is to be known on this subject, or seek to establish 
laws from the few experiments we have made in this 
interesting department of horticulture ? 
We are too prone to rush to conclusions hastily 
drawn in our horticultural zeal, forgetting that in this, 
as in other departments of science, we must first estab¬ 
lish our facts ; and that it requires a goodly number of 
well-tried, closely-observed, as well as repeated expe¬ 
riments, to establish one horticultural fact. 
When comparing my progress in knowledge from ob¬ 
servations made in the garden and orchard during the 
past twelve years, with what has been written during 
this period, particularly on the pear and the strawber¬ 
ry, and noticing the change in my own views as well 
as that of others, the fact that we are all a. b. c. schol¬ 
ars in the science of horticulture, is too palpable to be 
denied. During this period the sexual character of the 
strawberry has been established, the recognition of 
which is the very foundation on which the successful 
culture of that fruit depends. Tn the cultivation of 
the pear, while collecting facts from which to deduce 
our laws, it should not be regarded strange that we 
have now and then presented for our consideration very 
conflicting testimony—experiments detailed that seem 
to have been carefully made, and yet leading to di¬ 
rectly opposite results. This has been the case in 
every department of science till the accumulation of 
facts has warranted the establishment of a law that has 
at once dispelled confusion and reduced to order the 
chaotic mass. That the work now most pressing is the 
collection of facts—the gathering of one item of 
truth after another, we need barely announce. 
Even on the subject of pruning , where are we to 
find embodied directions so clearly established as to 
constitute a safe guide as we enter the orchard ? Even 
those of the lamented Downing—“ to shorten a part of 
the last year’s growth”—will assuredly lead to error 
of practice, for the concentration of the circulating 
fluids to repair an injury, as universally true in the 
vegetable as in the animal economy, will give such an 
increased predominance to the wood force, as to deve¬ 
lop twenty wood buds where otherwise there would 
have been but one. So obvious is this fact that many 
of our best physiologists are ready to say the knife 
should not approach the tree at all. 
What reliable teachings have we as to the character 
of the soil best adapted to the pear? How little stress 
is laid upon the condition of the subsoil, which has as 
controling an influence over the growth and the cha¬ 
racter of the fruit as the surface soil itself—hastening 
its period of ripening, as well as giving size and flavor 
to the fruit. Under-draining and subsoiling, in giving 
character to the cereals, is less marked in influence 
than a dry subsoil upon the character of our fruits. 
On the climate best adapted to the pear, who has 
written so lucidly that we can know what atmospheric 
condition so favors the growth of the pear, both the 
1 tree, and tb e fruit, as to make the crop as certain and 
reliable as the apple? Are the localities ever named, 
where under certain physical conditions of soil, or un¬ 
congenial climate, it will assuredly fail ? The expe¬ 
rience of our friend Mr. Allen, has taught us on this 
point at least one fact, that the climate .of Black 
Rock , is so uncongenial, that further trials need not 
there be made. There the bleak winds from the lake, 
sweeping with almost tempest fury over exposed situa¬ 
tions, give such an inclination eastward to the very 
trees themselves, that could they speak, you would 
hear them say, “ we would run away if we could, but 
as we cannot, we must stop here, bearing no fruit, and 
die.” Where is the chart delineating those localities, 
favorable or otherwise to its growth ? Hence the im¬ 
portance of just such testimony as we have from Mr. 
Allen. 
And moreover are we not yet learning that there are 
specific as well as general directions to be given on this 
subject; that what will succeed in one locality will 
fail entirely in another ; that an Easter Beurre in Bos¬ 
ton, regarded by their best judges a befitting present 
to the worthy editor of the Horticulturist, in Black 
Rock is no Easter Beurre at all ; instead of being the 
most aromatic of pears, is only “ as cold and watery, 
and no better as a winter fruit than a melon;” that 
the delicious Virgalieu of western New-York, is an 
outcast on the whole Atlantic coast. A curious fact 
has just been noticed by Mr. Buist, touching the Beurre 
Capiaumont —that the character of the pear, as well as 
the vigor of the foliage of the tree, is influenced by the 
height of the tree and the distance of the fruit from 
the ground. 
Who knows the best treatment to ripen the pear in 
perfection ? Here too, are we not all still experimen¬ 
ters ? Mr. Hovky tells us to barrel them up as we do 
apples, and we shall surely find them all right in the 
spring, requiring no more care than apples, and that 
they can only be brought to their state of perfection 
by being ripened in masses. Another directs them 
kept in boxes—layer by layer, carefully placed and 
certainly separated by some absorbing substance, as 
paper, chaff, bran or leaves. While a third finds no 
better place for them than deposited on shelves in the 
cellar, so nicely adjusted that one shall by no means 
touch its fellow. 
As certainly true is it that we are yet learning how 
to give them their golden color when at their period of 
ripeness—one, by a sweating process promoted by 
means of flannel, or at least woolen cloth—a treatment 
reminding one of the sheet of the hydropathist. Others 
still have other means of giving color and bloom to the 
pear; and just as diverse are the modes of training 
the tree, as to standard, half standard, or pyramidal 
form ; and so opinionated are some culturists on this 
subject that in their eyes any deviation from a perfect 
pyramid, shows an “entire ignorance of the growing 
of the tree on the Quince stock.” 
We have alluded to this state of things, that we may 
say to horticulturists, be neither dismayed nor discour¬ 
aged at what has lately been written on this subject. 
The age is one of conflict of opinion. ■ In this array of al¬ 
leged facts, seemingly diverse and incongruous as they 
are, some important lessons will be learned by us ; one 
item of truth after another will be elicited, till we shall 
have gathered materials enough for a building. Let 
us all be encouraged to go on making our observations j 
