The Pears of New York. U. P. Hedrick
seeds freely, and the seedlings from which are uniform; this ideal stock must be adapted to all pear-growing regions in the country; a large percentage of the seedlings must make first-class stocks; the budding season must be long; congeniality with all cultivated varieties must be great or very nearly perfect; the consort of stock and cion must make a long-lived tree.
Quince stocks are obtained from cuttings or mound-layers. Layering is considered the better method of the two. Stocks from the oriental hybrids, of the Kieffer and Le Conte type, are often grown from cuttings in the South. These are made in the spring from mature wood of the preceding year’s growth, and are treated much as are grape and currant cuttings. Long cuttings, a foot in length if possible, should be used. These stocks are of little value for varieties of the common pear, but are better than French stocks for the oriental hybrids, since these, in the South at least, usually overgrow French stocks. Own-rooted trees of these oriental hybrids are often grown from cuttings.
While of doubtful utility, stocks from other genera may be used for the pear. Some of the thorns are occasionally used as dwarfing stocks. The mountain ash is sometimes used to adapt pears to light sandy soils. Occasionally one hears of pears grafted on sorbus. The pear on the apple is short-lived, but old apple-trees top-worked to pears sometimes give abundant crops for a few years. Apple roots may be used as a nurse for pear cions. To be successful, the pear cion should be long, when, if grafted on short apple-roots and set deeply, the pear sends out roots and eventually becomes own-rooted.
PEAR ORCHARDS AND THEIR CARE
Perhaps no tree-fruit is more exacting in care than the pear. Young trees, in particular, must be well cared for and more or less coddled if any factor in environment is adverse. Almost any young orchard of this fruit becomes moribund if the owner settles down to self-satisfied complacency. As the trees come into full bearing, the several items of culture need not be so intensive. A perfect pear-orchard is about the consummation of good fruit-growing. But a perfect orchard of this fruit is seldom to be found, for, sooner or later, blight is certain to take its toll. Because of blight, the culture of no other fruit is attended with more frequent or keener disappointments. Today a man may walk in his orchard with adoration, as an artist walks in a beautiful landscape. Tomorrow, blight may blast the fairest trees. Pear-growing, thus, becomes a good deal of a gamble, and the boundaries within which a fruit-grower’s ambitions must be confined as to acreage must be more closely drawn than with other fruits. In most pear regions, the risks are too great to venture all in the culture of this fruit.
It is an uphill task to grow pears on land not well fitted before planting. A young pear-tree is about the least self-assertive of any of the tree-fruits. For the first year or two young pears seem to have almost no internal push, and are unable to get much of a start out of any but land in the best of tilth. A bare, stony, starved soil is no place for a young pear. The ground should be well tilled almost or quite to the depth the trees are to be planted, otherwise the roots seek the upper layers of earth where there is least resistance and food is most available. If the drainage is faulty, subsequent treatment is well-nigh useless. Sometimes retentive soils in which drainage is good most of the year but slow at planting time may be brought into condition by plowing a back-furrow along the line of each row in the direction of surface drainage to carry away the surface water. Under no circumstances should a tree be planted in a hole in which water is liable to stand about the roots. If possible, the land should be prepared a year in advance by putting in a hoed crop, after which it should be plowed deeply in the fall and pulverized well in the spring, and the trees planted as promptly as possible.
Land suitable for growing pears does not need to be fertilized for young trees. It is not too much to say that land which will not grow good wheat or corn is hardly fit for pears, although lighter soils fertilized as the trees come in bearing grow some varieties very well; but even on these the young trees will start as well without as with fertilizers. Commercial fertilizers, at least, are not wanted by young trees. Stable manure, usually priceless in orchard regions, often puts an atmosphere in an orchard not to be had by any other means, chiefly, probably, because it helps to put the land in good tilth rather than because of the plant food supplied.
Present practices in the use of fertilizers for mature pear-trees are very diverse. Until experiments in fertilizing pears are carefully carried out, the pear-grower may well follow the practices of apple-growers, since a considerable number of long-time experiments have thrown light on the fertilizer requirements of apples in the several great fruit regions of the country. The pear, however, requires a richer soil than the apple; but, on the other hand, it is pretty well agreed that the blight bacterium finds readier entrance and a better medium in which to grow in the soft wood of a luxuriant growth than in the more compact wood of slow growths. Whatever fertilizer is used should be applied early to promote early growth and so permit thorough ripening of wood well in advance of severe cold. Many growers maintain that blight is less virulent in orchards laid down to grass. It is doubtful if this is true and if true the produce is so scant and the pears so small that an orchard grown in grass is about as often a liability as an asset. When the pear is set in grass, however, nitrate of soda applied very early in the season in liberal amounts is a necessary adjunct to the grass-mulch. In any pear orchard, when the foliage is off color, small, sparse, or hangs limp, nitrate of soda is a sovereign rejuvenator.
This discussion may be closed with advice as to how one may know when his trees need fertilizers. If the trees are vigorous, bearing well, the fruits of proper size, the foliage a luxuriant green, the growth plump, the buds turgid, he may well assume that his trees need no additional plant-food. If the trees are not in the condition of well-being indicated, one ought to be well assured that drainage, tillage, and health are as they should be before applying expensive and uncertain fertilizers. Nothing is more satisfactory than making sure that one is not putting chemicals in the ground for nothing in the use of fertilizers. A simple experiment to obtain positive evidence as to whether a pear-orchard needs fertilizers is easily carried on and gives assurance where before there was doubt.
The following is an example of such an experiment: (1) Acid phosphate to give about 50 pounds of phosphoric acid to the acre applied to one plat; (2) phosphate as above and muriate of potash to give 100 pounds of potash to the acre on another plat; (3) phosphate and muriate as above and nitrate of soda and dried blood to give 50 pounds of nitrogen per acre on a third plat; (4) six tons of stable manure on a fourth plat; and (5) one plat left unfertilized as a check.
Planting practices vary so greatly from place to place and from time to time, and each method at the place and time seems so justifiable, that one can hardly advocate particular methods and can only state what they are. Thus, pears have been set in accordance with all of several planting plans, and at distances ranging from sixteen to twenty-five feet apart. At present, pear-orchards are usually laid out in meridians and parallels at intervals of eighteen and twenty feet; when the first distance is used, one hundred and thirty-four trees are planted to the acre; if the second, one hundred and eight trees. It is patent to the eye of every passer-by that these distances are more often too small than too great. Certainly on rich soils and with varieties the trees of which are spreading, the distance might often better be put at twenty-two or twenty-four feet. A poorly-colored pear is usually a poorly-flavored pear; and color and flavor are largely dependent on sunshine and air which are hardly to be had in closely-planted trees. Perfect alignment is imperative for convenience in working and pride of appearance. Dwarf trees in New York should be set at least fifteen feet apart each way, one hundred and ninety-three trees to the acre, although it is a common practice to set them closer.
Until recently one of the discouragements in pear-growing was the failure of fruit to set, even though the trees bore an abundance of blossoms. The discovery that failure was often due to self-sterility in a variety, and that it was necessary to set another variety near-by to furnish pollen to fertilize the self-sterile blossoms has removed much of the uncertainty in growing pears. We now know that self-sterility has a most important economic aspect in the planting of pears. Some of the varieties most profitable when planted to secure cross-pollination, are so unfruitful as to be quite unprofitable when a tree stands alone