PEAR. Pyrus communis. The pear would undoubtedly be the favorite dessert fruit of the day, were it not, that, owing to the blight and other disabilities neither uniform crops, nor the life of the tree itself can be depended on even in the most favored localities in the United States. The delicious varieties of the present day leave lit tle to be desired as a fruit to be eaten out of the hand. Pears are older than history, and yet it is only within the last 150 years that the exquisite qualities of this fruit have been developed, and only within the last fifty years that it has really been brought to perfection. This indeed may be said of the apple, the plum, the cherry and the peach, and yet not to the same degree. Although Belgium has been called the Eden of the pear, yet neither there nor elsewhere has a fruit been produced that will equal our Seckel, a chance seedling found in a hedge row in Pennsylvania, yet the average citizen will pass it by on our fruit stalls. They want big pears, and they get them, while the wise take the little russet red Seckel, and laugh in their sleeves. California is now the most famous pear growing district in the United States. In the vicinity of Boston, they do fairly well. Large quantities are sent from the Michigan lake shore region of IVIichigan. There are small orchards, and occasionally an old tree, as at Detroit,Mich.,Vin cennes, Ill., and near Indianapolis, Ind. We wish we could advise the general planting of pear orchards. We can not. Nevertheless every farm orchard should have a small collection of pears. Among the varieties of good pears that succeed measurably well in various parts of the country are : 1. Bartlett; 2. Belle Lucrative; 3. Beurre d'Anjou; 4. Duchesse d'Angouleme ; 5. Flemish Beauty; 6. Howell ; 7. Lawrence; 8. Onondaga ; 9. Seckel ; 10. Sheldon; 11. Winter nelis. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 11, are favorites in the West. Winter nelis, however, wants age to make it productive. The outline cut given above will show the forms of pears from obovate to oblong-ovate-pyriform. No. 1 being a tation of Pitmaston Duchess; 2. Duhamel du Morceau, and 3. Hoosic. The pear is peculiar in its growth, as a rule, inclining to pyramidal in the form of the tree, though they vary ably. The cuts on page 716 represent two dwarf trees which will explain themselves. So on page 717 we give an illustration of the Howell pear showing the form and distinctive markings of the fruit, and also a branch and leaf. While we can not advise the planting of pear orchards. except in peculiar soils and localities, subject to blight, yet every farm should have some pear trees in the home orchard. The following remarks will sufficiently cover the ground in relation to soil, situation and care: A low tion should always be avoided, on account of the greater extremes of temperature, humidity and especially want of deep drainage, for the pear will not succeed except on a deeply drained soil. A sloping hillside, uous to a well defined valley, forms the choicest orchard site, not only for pears, but for other fruits as well. To insure the greatest advantage from position the trees should not be planted lower than within fifty feet of upright elevation from the lowest point in the valley. The cold air will then settle during the night in a stratum below the trees, and the warm air accumulated in the lower ground during the day will be pressed up to the higher altitude occupied by the orchard, and thus afford considerable protection in cold nights. The obvious. necessity of shelter to pear orchards has led, in some stances, to the mistake of selecting low grounds for their apparently tected position, which, for the reasons given above, are the worst possible localities. Contrasted with valley ing, even what might be termed bleak exposures have the preference, and the satisfactory results attending orchards in low protected grounds has led to a position that shelter is jurious rather than cial. The addition of shelter to an otherwise judiciously selected site is quite different from endeavoring to secure it by choosing a low tion. The efficacy of protection is now generally well understood, especially by those who attempt pear culture in regions that are comparatively treeless. Even the White Doyenne, the famed Virgalieu, or butter pear, worthless in exposed situations, is produced in all its pristine lence, where the tree is protected, as may be seen in many old gardens in cities, where this variety is still common. The shelter required is not so much to repel or alleviate mere thermometric cold, as it is to arrest evaporation and its accompanying exhaustion of vitality, by checking the rapid and penetrating action of dry winds. Evergreen trees afford the most perfect shelter in the least space. A single row of Norway firs, Austrian pines, or other equally hardy evergreen trees will give shelter for a considerable distance ; thickly planted belts of deciduous trees will also render effective service. How far apart tbese belts and hedges should be placed, and in what direction they will be most useful, will depend upon the surroundings and local specialities. As the best mode of draining a field will depend upon its surface undulations, so the best mode of shelter ing.will be guided by the general aspect and position of the orchard. The pear will exist in a variety of soils, but attains greater perfection in clayey loam. Even on stiff clays the tree will grow and produce very satisfactorily under the ameliorating influences of the preparation and culture which such soils require. Draining first and subsoiling afterwards are the chief requisites for gradual amelioration ; in short, while a water soaked clay soil is the most utterly worthless of all lands for the groAh of any crop, a properly drained and aerated clay soil is by far the most valuable, and only requires careful manage ment to render it available for the best produc tions of the orchard, farm, or garden. The prominent precaution in managing a clay soil is never to work on it while wet, but only when it is dry to friability. No expedient or process of culture will compensate for the injury sustained by working clay soils during summer, when they are saturated with water; the injury can not be remedied except by a winter's freezing, which will again produce friability under proper treat ment. Soils of a sandy or gravelly character are not well adapted to the pear. In these soils, so variable in their degree of moisture, the trees ripen prematurely and drop their foliage early, if the weather proves dry toward the end of summer; then, in the event of moist weather following a period of drought, a late secondary growth will be produced, which, failing to mature, induces a tendency to blight, and pre disposes to other diseases. Surface dressings of compost, repeated cultivation, or constant mulch ing, will counteract to some extent, the effects of uncongenial soil for tile pear roots, but where it is impracticable to select any but a thin gravel or sand for the growth of this fruit, the dwarf tree is preferable, as the roots of the quince can be confined to a small area, which may be prepared and maintained to meet all require ments of growth. Where the soil has been pre pared by deep tillage it will not be necessary to dig holes deeper than required to merely cover the roots of the plant. In heavy soils that have not been prepared in the most thorough manner the holes should be made wide rather than deep. In gravelly subsoils pits may be dug eighteen inches in depth, the surface soil and subsoil being thrown out at opposite sides, and filled in equally until the proper height is reached for setting the plant. either case about a bushel of compost made up of leaf mold, rotted manure, and light soil if carefully spread around the roots, will form an admirable rooting medium; this should be finely pulverized and rather dry than wet when used. Deep planting and shallow planting are the injurious extremes in setting trees. The plain and incontrovertible rule is to set the plant so that the point from whence the stem and roots proceed in opposite directions will be about one inch below the level of the surface of the ground. It is infinitely better to plant so that some future surface dressing may be required to cover the swelling exposed roots, than to have them buried below the ready influence of atmospheric heat and air. The preservation of a proper degree of moisture in the soil surrounding the roots of the tree is the principal object of culture during the first summer after planting. Both the kind and amount of care will depend upon the nature of the soil and the condition of the weather; something will also depend upon the first prepar ation of the grouiad. Where the soil has been drained, deepened, and pulverized, and the sur face is loose and mellow, nothing further will be required than merely to prevent a growth of weeds. If the surface is tenacious, frequent stir ring, especially after rains, will probably suffice, but where the soil is shallow and largely com posed of sand or gravel, mulching will most effectually accomplish the purpose. Any loose rnaterial will answer as a mulc,h, such as coarse manure, strawy litter of any kind, or short grass as cut from lawns; where a few trees only are to. be cared for, tan bark and refuse charcoal dust are frequently employed. Mulch should not be applied before the middle of June, unless the weather proves very dry and warm previous to. that time, and on clean ground it may remain during the following winter, or be renewed if exhausted ; but in rough soddy ground, where field mice may lurk, the soil around the trees should be fine and kept clean and compressed. The best mode of treating the soil in pear orchards is an important question both in regard to the health of the tree, and the production of fruit. Laying aside all special circumstances, it appears evident that the condition of the plants will indicate the treatment required; the object being to maintain health and encourage fruit fulness, and the measure of successful accom plishment of these conditions will greatly depend upon the knowledge of the principles governing vegetable growth possessed by the cultivator. When the trees are young the chief object is to encourage judicious growth, by employing expedients known to favor vegetable extension, such as the application of manures, breaking up. and pulverizing the soil, surface stirring, and other similar operations. By judicious growth is meant a luxuriance not incompatible with maturity, and as this will depend upon climate and locality, it is evident that a discriminating knowledge of cause and effect will largely influ ence success. In northern latitudes where the season of growth is confined to five months duration, it will be impossible to mature the same amount of wood that can be produced on trees in a locality having seven months of grow ing season. In the latter case stimulating appli ances may be used with the best effects that would only tend to dissolution in the climate of short summers. The great desideratum in fruit culture is ripened wood; all useful cultivation begins and ends with this single object in view, and is the criterion of good or bad management.
To cultivate, or not to cultivate, is a question to be determined by climate and condition of soil. Where it is deemed advisable to encourage growth, it will be proper to employ such appli ances of culture as are known to produce that result; and again, when ample luxuriance is secured, and the tendency is still iu that direc tion, all surface culture should be abandoned, and the orchard be laid down in grass, cultivation to be again practiced when the trees indicate its necessity. The pear tree is usually a victim of excessive pruning. It is pruned in winter to make it grow, and pruned and pinched in summer to make it fruit. Why is it.that the pear, more than other spur-bearing fruit trees should be sup posed to require so close and continued pruning does not appear of easy explanation. It is evi dent that this immoderate pruning is not fol lowed by satisfactory results, for while apple, plum, aud cherry trees fruit with abundant regu larity, with but little atteution to pruning, unfruitfulness in the pear is a frequent cause of complaint, especially with those who pay the strictest attention to pruning rules, showing clearly that successful pear culture is not depend ent upon pruning alone. While it is perhaps equally erroneous to assert that pear trees should not be pruned at all—an extreme which no expe rienced cultivator will indorse—it is worthy of inquiry whether unpruned trees do not exhibit a better fruit-bearing record than those which have been subject to the highest pruning codes. How far the proverbial liability of the pear to suffer from blight may be due to the interference and disarrangement of growths caused by sum rner pruning it may not be possible -to decide, but the tendency to late fall growths, and the consequent immaturity of wood which is thereby encouraged, is well known to be of much injury, and greatly conducive to disease. Perhaps no advice that has been given is so fruitful a cause of failure and disappointment in fruit culture as that embodied in the brief sentence, Prune in summer for fruit. The physiological principle upon which this advice is based is that which recogniza barrenness in fruit trees as the result of an undue amount of wood growth, and that, in accordance with acknowledged laws, any pro cess that will secure a reduction of growth will' induce fruitfulness. The removal of foliage from a tree in active growth will weaken its vitality, by causiug a corresponding check to the extension of roots, but the removal of the mere points of strong shoots has no palpable effect in checking root growth, the roots pro ceed to grow, and the sap seeks outlets in other channels, forming new shoots, which in no way increase the fruitfulness of the plant. While it may be confidently stated that, as a practical rule, easily followed, and of general application, summer pruning for fruit can not be recom mended except as an expedient rarely success ful, it is also true that there are certain periods in the growth of a plant when the removal of a portion of the shoots would tend to increase the development of the remaining buds, without causing them to form shoots. For example, if the growing shoots of a pear tree are shortened or pruned by removing one-third of their length, say, toward the end of June, the check will immediately cause the remaining buds on these shoots to push into growth and produce a mass of twigs–as far removed as may be from fruit producing branches. Again, if this pruning is delayed until August, and the season subse quently proves to be warm and dry, the proba bilities are that the remaining buds will develop into short spur-like shoots, from which blossom buds may in course of time be formed; but if the season continues wet, and mild and growing weather extends late into the fall, these same shoots will be lengthened into weakly, slender growths, which never mature, and are of no use whatever. There is no certainty as to the proper time to summer prune, because no two seasons are precisely alike, and trees vary in their vigor from year to yeaT; and yet this uncertain, indefi nite, and constantly experimental procedure is the basis upon which the advice to prune in summer for fruit is founded. The pear tree, in fact, requires very little pruning, and that only so far as may be necessary to regulate branches in either of two exigencies. In the first place, when the young tree is placed in its per manent position in the orchard, its roots will be greatly disturbed and many of them destroyed; it will therefore be expedient in this exigency to abridge the branches, so as to restore the balance of growth that existed between the roots and branches previous to removal. This pruning at transplanting has its opponents on the theoretical grounds that, as the formation of roots is dependent upon the action of leaves, it must follow that the more branches and leaves left upon a plant the more rapidly- will new roots be produced; but there is one important element overlooked in this reasoning, namely, this loss of sap by evaporation, which speedily exhausts the plant, while it has no active roots to meet the demand. The proper practice is to reduce the branches so as to give the roots the pre ponderance, and many kinds of trees can only be successfully removed by cutting the stem off close to the ground. If the tree has been pruned close back at planting, the first summer will develop the foundation for a well-balanced, symmetrical plant, but as this result depends upon a good start, it is well to keep an eye on the young growths during the first season, and if any of the shoots appear to be developing to the detriment of others equally necessary for future branches, the points of such shoots should be piuched off, but in doing so, let there be as small a removal of foliage as possible, the object being not to weaken, but merely to equalize growth. It is claimed, as a general rule, that no advantage will be gained by pruning anfportion of the shoots after the first season, unless in the case of weakly trees, which will be strengthened by pruning down during winter. The removal of branches during summer weakens growth, hut when a portion of the branches are removed after growth is completed, the roots, not having been disturbed, will have the preponderance, and the number of buds being diminished, those that are left will receive increased vigor. It should never be forgotten that there is nothing more certain than that by shortening in or pruning back the ends of shoots, either in summer or winter, the fruit-producing period is retarded, and the fruit producing capabilities of the trees abridged. Fruiting spurs will not form where the growths are constantly interrupted and excited by prun ing; but, after the third or fourth year, young shoots will, in the majority of varieties, 'become covered with fruiting spurs the second year after their formation, if left to their natural mode tnd condition of growth. Of course this refers to trees in soils of moderate fertility, grown in a climate favorable to the plant. The only prun ing, then, that is really essential, after the plant has become established, will be confined to thin ning out crowded branches; and this forms the second exigency for pruning. If low-headed trees are preferred, those branches that have become destitute of fruiting spurs near the body of the tree may be cut out and a young shoot be allowed to take the place of the one removed. There will be no lack of young shoots for this purpose, as they will be produced from the base of the cut branch, selecting the strongest and best placed to occupy the vacancy, if such occu pancy is desired. This mode of cutting back branches will be more particularly essential in the case of dwarf pears, as the quince roots are unable to support a tall, heavy-headed tree, but in all other respects dwarf pears should be treated the same as standards. In comparing remarks and observations made by different cultivators with reference to the merits of varieties, their growth, productiveness, size, and quality of fruit, and other characteristics, there is found so great a disparity as to lead to a supposition that dif ferent varieties are being discussed under the same name. No doubt this is occasionally the case, but the difference caused by the influence of the stocks upon which they are worked is fre quently to blame for these discrepancies Every nurseryman is aware of the great irregularity of growth in plants of the same variety; they may have been grafted at the same time on stocks of equal size—planted on the same da.y and in the same soil, yet their comparative growths will vary considerably; so much difference exists that the plants will be classed into two or more sizes, and held at different valuations. Although the vigor of growth imparted is thus varied, the habit of the variety is not changed, the upright form of growth will still characterize the Buffum, and the spreading habit of the Rostiezer will remain with .each individual of that variety; but in a planta tion of fifty of any sort there will be some weak g-rowers, and an occasional specimen that, after lingering on in a sickly condition for several years, will finally be removed. It is reasonable to expect these diversities in the growth of stocks produced from seed, and the influence they im part to the graft, but it is seldom that allowance is made for the many peculiarities that may undouhtedly be traced to this cause. This is still further confirmed by the more uniform growth ,of dwarf pears, the stocks of whiclf are produced from cuttings or layers, and are consequently of more uniform vigor, being au extension of one individuality, instead of the separate individu alities of seedling plants. The greatest drawback to extended pear culture is the disease familiarly known as blight. The predisposing cause of this malady has not been specifically determined; the active cause of dissolution is known to be para sitical fungi. This much, however, experience seems to confirm, that trees placed in positions and under circumstances of soil and climate that insure a growth of moderate vigor, which growth shall become perfectly matured and solidified before the advent of winter, are so seldom attacked by this disease as to be, for all practical purposes, exempt. A safe practice, and one that will probably become general when further and extended experiments prove its value, is to cover the body of the tree and all the principal branches, but not the buds, with a wash, formed by plac ing one peck of lime aud two pounds of sulphur in a vessel, and adding suffitient boiling water to slake the lime. If the white color is objection able it can be changed to any other more suit able. The spread of fungi on the bark of trees has been arrested by timely application of this mixture. The opinion is now becoming preva lent that close planting, so that the trees shelter each other, is advantageous. For standard trees, eighteen feet apart is considered a good maximum, and ten feet for dwarfs. These distances pre clude the practicability of using horse-power in the culture of the soil, at all events after a few years' growth ; which, all things being considered, may be regarded as a step in the right direction.