318 
March  3,  1023 
The  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
No  Two  Buds  Alike 
Pabt  I. 
VARIATIONS  IN  VARIETIES.— There  are  no 
two  leaves  on  a  tree  exactly  alike.  This  is  a 
plain  fact  which  will  hardly  be  disputed,  but  its  sig¬ 
nificance  hi  practical  horticulture  has  hardly  been 
Here  and  there  a  branch  has  been  found  which  bore 
fruit  of  predominating  russet.  These  russety  Bald¬ 
wins  have  also  been  propagated.  Hunt  Russet  has 
just  that  history. 
NECTARINES. — Perhaps  the  most  famous  ex¬ 
ample  in  the  fruit  growing  world  is  found  among 
the  nectarines.  Now  a  nectarine  is  simply  a  smooth¬ 
skinned  peach — only  that  and  nothing  more.  And 
whil'fe  some  varieties  of  nectarines  have  originated 
as  seedlings,  others  have  occurred  as  bud  variations. 
Somebody  found  a  branch  on  a  peach  tree  (which 
branch  of  course  grew  from  a  single  bud ).  and  which 
bore  fruits  with  a  smooth  cheek  instead  of  the  usu¬ 
ally  fuzzy  peaches.  Now  anyone  who  reads  the 
advertisements  knows  that  when  you  find  a  peach 
with  that  “skin  you  love  to  touch”  you  have  a  nec¬ 
tarine.  Yet  these  nectarines,  after  having  been  suc¬ 
cessfully  propagated  by  the  usual  budding  methods, 
sometimes  revert,  and  the  fruit  grower  then  finds 
fuzzy  coated  peaches  on  certain  branches  of  his  nec¬ 
tarine  tree.  r-  A-  WAU6H* 
climate.  In  its  European  home  the  pear  is  possibly 
the  most  popular  tree  fruit,  yet  in  this  country  it  is 
of  major  importance  in  but  few  sections  and  is 
cultivated  not  much  more  than  the  cherry  and  plum. 
This  difference  is  due  to  a  number  of  factors,  chief 
among  which  is  the  fact  that  the  climate  of  Europe, 
in  which  the  pear  reaches  its  greatest  perfection,  is 
more  equable  than  ours.  Shortage  or  excess  of 
Japanese  Phans. 
Leaf  Buds  Left;  Fruit  Buds  Right 
Fig.  110 
understood,  and  the  scientists  are  still  arguing  over 
some  of  the  plainest  implications.  Perhaps  the  com¬ 
mon  fruit  grower  would  better  check  up  and  see 
where  he  gets  off.  If  no  two  leaves  are  alike,  it  fol¬ 
lows  that  no  two  buds  are  alike,  no  two  flowers,  no 
(wo  fruits.  These  differences  indeed  constitute  the 
great  biological  fact  of  variation.  Only  a  distinction 
is  sometimes  drawn  between  the  variation  which  is 
found  among  seedling  plants  and  that  which  is  seen 
among  those  propagated  from  buds.  This  latter 
form,  known  as  bud  variation,  is  gen¬ 
erally  much  narrower  in  range.  In 
fact,  bud  propagation,  such  as  the  bud¬ 
ding  of  peach  trees,  is  practiced  just 
because  a  uniform  orchard  of  Elbertas 
or  Crawfords  can  be  secured  in  this 
way,  whereas  an  orchard  propagated 
from  seeds  would  show  so  much  varia¬ 
tion  as  to  be  commercially  worthless. 
Nevertheless  the  Elberta  peach  trees 
in  the  same  row  are  not  all  alike.  They 
are  just  as  different  from  one  another 
as,  the  buds  on  a  given  branch — per¬ 
haps  more  so.  One  of  the  easiest  ob¬ 
servations  to  be  made  in  any  orchard  is 
that  some  trees  have  better  fruit  than 
others,  some  give  larger  yields,  some 
ripen  earlier,  and  others  later.  The 
moment  these  facts  are  observed  a 
number  of  very  sharp  questions  come 
crowding  upon  them.  Where  do  these 
differences  come  from?  Are  they  per¬ 
manent?  Can  the  fruit  grower  take 
advantage  of  them  for  the  further  im¬ 
provement  of  his  varieties? 
CONSPICUOUS  EXAMPLES.  —  Be¬ 
fore  insisting  on  point-blank  answers  to  these  flat 
questions,  it  may  be  just  as  well  to  broaden  our  ob¬ 
servations  and  to  collect  some  additional  evidence. 
The  variations  thus  far  mentioned  are  mostly  quite 
trivial  in  degree.  While  it  is  literally  true  that  no 
two  Elberta  trees  are  exactly  like  one 
another,  the  differences  are  so  small  as 
to  have  no  great  practical  value.  In 
actual  practice  they  are  negligible,  and 
the  fruit  grower  dismisses  them  alto¬ 
gether.  But  there  are  bud  variations 
not  infrequently  occurring  of  much 
larger  measure,  and  these  require  spe¬ 
cial  attention.  For  example,  there 
have  been  found  on  Gravenstein  apple 
trees  at  divers  times  particular 
branches  bearing  bright  red  apples 
quite  different  from  the  characteristic 
striped  Gravensteins.  Buds  taken  from 
these  branches  and  used  in  propagation 
have  usually  reproduced  the  bright  red 
fruit  of  the  parent  branch,  not  the 
striped  fruit  of  the  parent  trees. 
“Bank’s  Pippin,”  a  variety  locally 
known  in  Nova  Scotia,  originated  in 
this  way.  A  parallel  case  is  found  in 
the  popular  Baldwin  apple,  which  often 
shows  patches  of  russet  on  good  fruits. 
Pear  Growing  in  New  York 
Pabt  I. 
j  FADING  PEAR  STATES.— For  years  New  York 
I  >  ili3s  been  the  leading  pear-producing  State. 
Within  the  past  decade  California  has  overtaken 
he.-  in  pear  production  and  the  present  indications 
are  that  she  will  be  further  outdistanced.  In  num¬ 
ber  of  bearing  trees  New  York  is  still  in  the  lead, 
but  a  glance  at  the  recent  United  States  Census  in¬ 
dicates  that  even  this  supremacy  will  be  short  lived, 
for  New  York  has  but  907,573  trees  “not  of  bearing 
age”  against  California’s  2.17S.52G!  There  were 
fewer  trees  planted  in  New  York  during  the  last  10 
years  than  during  the  10-year  period  immediately 
preceding.  The  pear  industry  in  New  York  seems 
on  the  wane,  and  this  is  all  the  mbre  unfortunate 
because  each  year  seems  to  see  California  more 
distant  from  her  eastern  markets  than  ever  before. 
SOIL  AND  CLIMATE.— One  characteristic  of  the 
pear  is  its  exacting  requirements  as  to  soil  and 
Number  of  frees  by  Counties 
Over  600,000 
•  300,000 
-  ZOO  000 
100,000 
-  so.  ooo  vzz 
25,  OOO  II 
111 
Distribution  of  Pear  Trees  in  Yew  York  State. 
Apple  Buds  in  Early  Spring.  Note  the  Differences.  Fig.  112 
Seel; el  Pear  at  Geneva ,  N.  Y.,  Experiment  Station 
Fig.  113 
moisture,  extreme  heat,  extreme  cold  are  all  detri¬ 
mental  to  the  pear.  The  regions  in  North  America 
where  commercial  pear  growing  has  reached  im¬ 
portance  are  those  tempered  by  adjacent  bodies  of 
water  and  favored  by  uniform  moisture 
supply.  With  the  advent  of  the  Kief- 
fer,  Garber,  Le  Conte,  and  other  hy¬ 
brid  pears,  pear  growing  has  been 
greatly  extended,  but  pears  of  the 
European  stock  are  still  grown  only  in 
favored  localities. 
LOCATIONS  IN  NEW  Y  O  R  K 
STATE. — This  limited  distribution  of 
pear  growing  is  illustrated  by  a  com¬ 
parison  of  the  important  regions  in 
New  York.  In  total  number  of  trees, 
Niagara  County  leads  all  counties,  not 
only  in  the  State  but  in  the  entire 
United  States  as  well,  with  a  total  of 
020,743  trees.  Next  in  order  are  Mon¬ 
roe  County,  with  384,374;  Orleans, 
with  377,371;  Columbia,  with  308,29s ; 
Wayne,  with  305,239;  and  Ulster,  with 
304,158.  Sixty  per  c-eut  of  all  the  pear 
trees  of  the  State  are  in  these  six  of 
the  02  counties.  ‘  : 
OTHER  FACTORS.— Pear  growing 
is  not  only  confined  to  certain  favored 
localities;  but  leaving  out  economic 
factors,  such  as  proximity  to  markets, 
labor  supply,  and  the  like,  certain  sections  of  these 
localities  are  more  suitable  than  others.  Since  it  is 
naturally  a  deep-rooted  tree,  the  pear  requires  a 
deeper  soil  than  the  apple.  Unless  it  is  in  congenial 
surroundings,  the  tree  does  not  do  well,  and  the 
fruit  is  astringent,  sour,  gritty,  or 
otherwise  inferior.  One  of  the  reasons 
why  Bartlett,  Seckel,  and  Clapp  Favor¬ 
ite  are  more  popular  than  other  varie¬ 
ties  is  that  they  do  well  under  a 
greater  number  of  conditions.  For  most 
varieties  of  pears  the  problem  is  to 
find  the  environment  in  which  they  are 
happiest.  It  is  true  that  pears  gen¬ 
erally  grow  best  on  a  heavy  soil,  but 
they  may  do  well  on  other  soils  pro¬ 
vided  other  conditions  are  right.  Heavy 
soils  are  more  retentive  of  moisture 
than  light  ones  and  since  the  pear  is 
exceedingly  insistent  upon  an  equable 
moisture  supply,  it  can  be  seen  why 
clay  soils  are  more  often  better  for 
this  fruit.  Hybrid  pears,  which  with¬ 
stand  heat  and  drouth  much  better 
than  varieties  of  the  pure  European 
species,  often  grow  well  on  sandy  or 
gravelly  soils.  Wet  soils  are  to  be 
shunned  for  all  pears.  h.  b.  tukey. 
