A Fruit Survey oe Mesa County 
35 
in the Valley. This pear ripens in August. It is of good quality 
and sells well. The tree bears regularly, but is very susceptible 
to blight. 
TABLE V.—THREE PRINCIPAL VARIETIES OF PEARS, SHOWING PERCENTAGE 
GROWN IN EACH DISTRICT AND IN ENTIRE VALLEY. 
Entire 
Variety Palisade Clifton Grand Jet. Fruita Loma Valley 
Bartlett. 56.6 46.5 44.5 25.5 7.8 47.5 
Keiffer . 26.8 33.8 32.2 28.4 52.2 31.8 
Anjou . 5.3 8.6 12.7 “ 23.2 9.6 9.8 
All others (over 40 varieties) 11.3 11.1 10.6 22.9 30.4 10.9 
Totals .100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 
Keiffer ranks second in importance. It is a late fall pear, 
rather poor in quality, and much used for canning. It is an ex¬ 
cellent shipper and a good keeper. The tree is very vigorous, an 
upright grower, and quite resistant to blight. Due to the preval¬ 
ence of blight in Grand Valley, it is very well adapted for planting. 
Anjou comprises nearly 10% of the Grand Valley pear trees. 
It is a wonderful pear and brings top prices on the market. The 
fruit ripens late in the fall and keeps well. The quality is excel¬ 
lent. Anjou is fairly resistant to blight, and should be more com¬ 
monly planted. Its chief faults are, coming into bearing late and 
not bearing a full crop every year. These failings may be some¬ 
what corrected by judicious pruning. 
There are five other varieties, each of which includes 1% or 
more of the total pears of the Valley. They are: Winter Nelis, 
1.8%; Flemish Beauty, 1.7%; Garber, 1.3%; Lawrence, 1.3%; P. 
Barry, 1%. 
About 50 varieties are grown, but those mentioned are the most 
important. There will probably be many pear trees planted in 
Grand Valley in the future, and this list should serve as a guide in 
choosing varieties. 
Cultural Methods 
Clean cultivation and cover cropping are about equally divided 
among pears. Cover crops are used more in the western part of 
the pear belt, while in the eastern part, clean culture is the rule. 
There is perhaps less tendency to blight when a cover crop is 
grown. The trees seem to do better when this practice is followed, 
although they are usually slower growing than when under clean 
culture. Too frequent irrigations accompanying continued clean 
cultivation have been the ruin of many good pear orchards. 
Pruning 
Pears require considerably leiss pruning than apples. A com¬ 
mon belief is that they should not be pruned any more than is ab- 
