The blooming period is that of full bloom. The data were taken from trees grown under normal conditions as to pruning, distance apart, and as to all other factors which might influence the blooming period. There is a variation of several days between the time of full bloom of the different varieties of pears. These differences can be utilized in selecting sorts to avoid injury from frost. In using blooming-time data it must be kept constantly in mind that varieties of fruits may not bloom in the same relative time. In very warm or very cold springs the usual relations of blooming-time may be upset.
Rainfall, moisture, and cloudiness are most important in growing pears. England, Belgium, and northern France, regions where the pear finds the climate most congenial, have much cool, moist, cloudy weather with much less variation in temperature than is the case in the United States. The climate of New York and the states bordered by the Great Lakes where most of the pears of eastern America are grown, is cooler, moister, and cloudiness is more prevalent than in other eastern states. The summer climate of the Pacific slope is not moist but is equable and, in the best pear orchards, moisture is supplied abundantly by irrigation. From these considerations we may assume that the pear requires more moisture than most other fruits. The pear in New York more often suffers from too little than from too much rain. The exception is when pears are in bloom, at which time the crop is sometimes lost or badly injured by cold, wet weather. Warm, moist weather is favorable to both fire-blight and the scab fungus, the two most dreaded diseases of the pear.
Several other weather problems should be studied before selecting a region as a site for a pear-orchard. The direction, force, and frequency of prevailing winds both in winter and summer are important considerations. Unfavorable winds in winter favor winter-killing; in blooming time prevent the proper setting of fruit; and at ripening time make many windfalls. Hail storms are more frequent in some parts of New York than in others and may be a deterrent in selecting a site. Lastly, drouths, so fatal to the pear, are more common in some parts of the State than in others.
Pears thrive in a great diversity of soils, provided, almost always, that there is depth for proper root-run. A few varieties may be grown in comparatively shallow soils, but most pears are deep-rooted. The common pear is rather averse to sand, gravels, and light soils in general, and does best in rather heavy loams, clays, and even in silts. Many varieties show preferences for the several types of loam and clay, and the commercial grower must see to it that the varieties he plants are suited in their particular soil preference. Hybrids between the common pear and the oriental pear—the Kieffer and its kin—grow well in much lighter soils than pure-bred sorts of the common pear, and, as a rule, find sands and gravels more to their liking than clays and heavy loams. Pears will stand rather more water in the soil than any other of their orchard associates, but a soil water-soaked for any great length of time in the growing season is a poor medium in which to grow pears. If, therefore, a soil is not sufficiently dry naturally it must be tile-drained.
Pear soils must be fertile. All varieties of this fruit refuse to produce good crops in soils lacking an abundance of the several chemical elements of plant nutrition. Even the light soils on which Kieffer, Garber, and Le Conte seem to do best must be well stored with plant-food. This means that good pear land is costly. Soils that grow good pears usually grow good farm crops. Pears planted in a poor soil do not live but linger. Who has not seen short-wooded, rough, malformed, dwarfed, starved trees which have come to their wretched condition because planted on land not fertile enough for this fruit? The land-skinner who grows grass in his orchard usually comes to grief quickly. Pears start best in a virgin soil from which the forest has not been long removed; on the other hand, they are often hard to start on senile soils even though they have been heavily fertilized. Plenty of humus seems to stimulate pears. There is a prejudice against soils too rich, some holding that on overly rich land the growth is soft and sappy and therefore a good medium for the multiplication of the blight bacteria. This is mostly prejudice, but certain it is that culture and fertility should not be so managed that the growth continues late, and the trees go into the winter soft and tender to cold.
Soils seem to have a profound influence on the flavor and texture of pears. In uncongenial soils the fruits are often so sour or astringent, dry or gritty, that the product is poor in quality; whereas the pears of the same variety in a soil to which it is suited are choicely good. A few varieties, as Bartlett, Clapp Favorite, and Seckel, grow well and produce fine fruit in a great diversity of soils, but most sorts do so much better in one soil than in another that it becomes a matter of prime importance in pear-growing to discover the particular adaptations of the varieties to be planted. To discover an ideal soil for a variety is about the highest desideratum in pear-growing.
Some varieties are made to grow in uncongenial soils by grafting them on stocks better adapted to the soil. Thus, on certain soils some pears grafted on quince stocks do better than on pear roots. This is a great field of future discovery and one in which discoveries are being made as experimenters try new stocks to secure greater resistance to blight. In all of this work, pear-growers must know not only how well the stock resists blight, but also how well the cion takes to the stock and the stock thrives on various soils.
The pear is easy to suit in matter of site for the orchard so far as lay of land is concerned. Altitude, exposure, slope, and local climate, all so important in choosing sites for the more tender peach, plum, and sweet cherry, need receive little consideration in planting the pear. A site somewhat higher than the surrounding country gives the two great advantages of soil drainage and air drainage. Good air drainage is a prime requisite with pears, as it helps to reduce the danger from frost, and neither pear-scab nor fire-blight are as virulent as on trees planted on sites where there is little movement of air. Rolling land, so often recommended for all fruits, seems not to be essential for pears, as many splendid orchards of this fruit are on flat lands, which, however, usually have an elevation above the surrounding country on one or more boundaries. The influence of large bodies of water, so favorable to the peach, is not as necessary with the pear, although the best pear regions in the State are near the Great Lakes, the Finger Lakes, or along the Hudson. There are no successful pear-orchards in the State surrounded by higher land. Frosts, freezes, pear-blight, and fungi would soon play havoc with pear-trees in such a situation.
The shelter of hills, forests, or of apple-orchards, provided they do not shade the pear-orchard too much, may be a valuable adjunct to a site. Such shelter, however, is desirable only when so situated as to protect against unseasonable winds and storms. Tree and fruit suffer greatly when loaded branches are whipped about by strong winds. The advantages of artificial windbreaks, whether of evergreen or deciduous trees, are usually more than offset by disadvantages. The direction in which land slopes is greatly over-emphasized by horticultural writers if orchards in New York are considered. The only important aspect of exposure for pears in this State is that the land slope toward the water when near a large body of water that the orchard may secure in full the effects that come from planting trees near the water.
Economic considerations are becoming more and more important in choosing sites for all fruits in New York. Transportation facilities, including good roads, markets, labor, and packing and selling organizations are now more important in the pear regions of the State than the natural determinants of soil and climate, since these are so favorable in any of the fruit regions in which pears are largely grown. Natural advantages are more common than man-made ones, and the pear may be grown on vast areas of New York lands so far as climate and soil are concerned, but which are wholly unsuited because the economic factors are unfavorable. Sites for pear-orchards should be sought for in localities where there are pears enough grown for a central packing association; near a shipping center where the haul is short and over good roads; the freight service should be prompt, regular, and efficient, with low freight and good refrigerator service; labor should be abundant and not too expensive; and the markets should be several and so located that they are not controlled by growers in regions more advantageously situated.
The pear-grower is becoming more and more concerned with the kind of stock upon which his trees are grafted. One or more of several objects is sought in working a pear on roots other than its own. The stock may be chosen, and most often is, with the single purpose in view of perpetuating a variety; it may be selected to dwarf or magnify the size of the cion; very often the stock is better adapted to the soil than the cion would be on its own roots; the quality of the fruit is sometimes improved by the stock; lastly, some stocks are much more resistant to fire-blight than others. It is this last character of the stock that is now receiving most attention. Stock and cion are united either by budding or grafting, with budding coming more and more in use. More than with any other fruit, double-working is used in propagating pears. For example, the quince stock is often preferred to a pear stock. But some varieties of pears do not unite well with the quince, in which case a sort which makes a good union with the quince is first budded or grafted on the stock, and when this cion has grown to sufficient size, it is top-worked to the desired variety. According to the size of the mature plant, pear-trees are designated as dwarfs and standards, the difference in size being brought about by the stock. Dwarf trees are usually grown on quince stocks; standards, on pear stocks.
Dwarfing pear-trees is an old practice, having been in use in Europe at least 300 years. During this time the use of quince stocks to dwarf the pear has been a common practice in France and England. For a century, dwarfing the pear by growing it on the quince has been common in America. Dwarfing is recommended to secure several effects. Dwarf trees are more manageable than standard trees when the orchard area is small; dwarfing stocks are shallow rooted, and dwarfs, as a rule, do not need a soil so deep as do standard trees; pears grown on quince stocks are often larger, handsomer, and better in flavor and texture than those grown as standards; the trees come in bearing earlier. Dwarf pears, never very common on this continent, are not planted as much now as they were some years ago. At one time, orchards of these dwarfs were a familiar sight in New York. A dwarf orchard and even a dwarf tree is now seldom seen. The faults that have driven them out of New York are: The stocks used in dwarfing are not uniform, consequently the trees vary in vigor, health, habit of growth, and in time of maturity; nurserymen find that the stocks vary greatly in ease of propagation either from cuttings or layers; the quince stocks are of several varieties, difficult and expensive to obtain and, therefore, the orchard trees are expensive; dwarf trees require much more care in pruning, training, and cultivation than do standard trees; the cost of producing pears in a dwarf orchard is greater than in a plantation of standard trees, and the fruit does not command a much higher price; dwarf trees are commonly rated as less hardy than standard trees and are much shorter-lived; left to themselves, or if planted too deep, the cions take root and the trees are but half dwarf. Some of the objections to dwarf trees could be done away with by obtaining a variety of the quince which would dwarf the pear satisfactorily, which could be grown easily from cuttings or layers, and upon which most pears could be easily worked. A quince of this description is not in sight.
There is great difference of opinion among growers as to what varieties may be successfully grown on quince stocks. Probably all will agree that the following, few indeed, are the best dwarfs in America: Beurré d’Anjou, Duchesse d’Angoulême, Howell, Lawrence, Louise Bonne de Jersey, Elizabeth, and White Doyenné. All other sorts, if to be grown on dwarfs, grow better when double worked.
Almost all of the pears grown in America, as has been said, are standard trees. The stocks for these standard pears are nearly all imported from Europe under the name French stocks, although on the Pacific slope seedlings of oriental species are being used more and more. The French stocks are seedlings of vigorous forms of the common pear, P. communis. Efforts to grow stocks of this species in America usually fail because leaf-blight is so destructive as to make their culture unprofitable. Leaf-blight can be controlled by spraying, but other deterrents, as high price of labor and losses from dry summers, added to the cost of spraying, make American-grown stocks expensive. Stocks raised in this country are usually seedlings from imported seed. Seedlings of the Sand pear, P. serotina, and its hybrids have been tried extensively in the South and West to obtain cheap stocks more resistant to pear-blight than the French stock, but they do not seem to be much more resistant to blight, and many of the best varieties do not take on these stocks, so that they are generally considered a failure.
New types of stocks are needed badly. The ideal stock must be vigorous and hardy; fairly immune to leaf-blight and fire-blight; it must come from a species which 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.
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 or when the variety is set in a solid block with no other sort near. Under most conditions Bartlett and Kieffer, the mainstays of American pear-culture, both need pollen from another variety to insure a full set of fruit. Under some conditions both may be sufficiently self-fertile. From these two statements it is seen that self-sterility is not a constant factor in a variety.
Self-sterility and self-fertility are greatly influenced by the condition under which a variety is grown. Thus, a variety is often self-sterile in one locality and not in another. Occasionally Bartlett, usually nearly or quite self-sterile, and other varieties as well, set fruit one season and not the next. All pears, the Bartlett in particular, seem to have a greater degree of self-sterility in eastern pear regions than on the Pacific slope. In general, the better the adaptation of a variety to its environment the better it sets fruit with its own pollen. It is obvious, therefore, that it is not possible to give lists of self-sterile and self-fertile varieties. Such lists can be made out only for regions and localities. Some varieties, however, more often fail to set fruit because of self-sterility than others. Among standard pears, Bartlett, Beurré d’Anjou, Beurré Clairgeau, Clapp Favorite, Howell, Kieffer, Lawrence, Sheldon, and Winter Nelis appear to be most often self-sterile. Beurré Bosc, Flemish Beauty, and Seckel are usually self-fertile.
A self-sterile variety usually sets fruit when another variety is at hand to supply pollen. Several considerations determine the selection of varieties to interplant. Thus, the two varieties must blossom at the same time if cross-pollination is to be effective. The table on pages 88 to 90 shows the sorts that bloom at the same time, or nearly enough so to make cross-pollination possible. Under normal conditions, the blooming time of varieties overlaps sufficiently for cross-pollination excepting those that bloom very early and very late. If the table is used for regions much to the north or to the south of this Station, allowance must be made for a shorter blooming period the farther north; a longer one the farther south. That varieties of pears have sexual affinities is another consideration that merits some attention. That is, one variety will fertilize another sort very well, while pollen from a third may not be at all acceptable. “Affinities” can be determined only by hand crossing. Probably the importance of affinities is over-rated. The distance between varieties set for cross-pollination must not be too great—not more than two or three rows apart. For convenience in harvesting, varieties should be selected in relation to ripening. Only commercial varieties should be interplanted, as the wastage is too great if comparatively worthless sorts are set to fertilize a standard commercial variety.
Some disadvantages attend the setting of mixed orchards of pears, and these must be weighed and overcome as far as possible. There are many current statements to the effect that all varieties, whether self-sterile or self-fertile, are more fruitful and produce better fruit with foreign pollen than with their own. To old pear-growers, this seems to be putting it rather strong, but the statements come from accurate experimenters and observers and should have consideration. Cross-pollination, be it remembered, is not a cure-all for failures to set fruit. Unseasonable weather, lack of vitality in trees, various fungi, and no doubt other agencies, may be the cause of unfruitfulness.
As to commercial varieties, the tale is soon told. Only a half-dozen sorts are generally planted in New York orchards. These, about in order of importance, are: Bartlett, Kieffer, Seckel, Beurré Bosc, Beurré d’Anjou, and Winter Nelis. To this short list may be added the following grown more or less for local markets: Clapp Favorite, Sheldon, Beurré Clairgeau, Lawrence, Howell, Tyson, and Mount Vernon. A list for the home orchard should include all of these and many more to be chosen from the major varieties described in Chapter IV. The pear flora of the country changes very slowly, and there are now almost no new sorts on general probation in the country.
Perhaps with no other tree-fruits is it more important to begin with good trees, as even with the best it is often difficult to get a good start toward a pear-orchard. Black-heart, caused by winter-killing, is a sign that must be heeded, and a tree badly blackened in its pith, especially if the surrounding wood is discolored, should be discarded. Crown-gall on tap roots affects the tree deleteriously. Trees marked by hail or insects are often worthless. Other marks that commend or condemn trees are: A short stocky plant is better than a tall spindling one. A tree with many branches is better than one with few branches. The roots should be much branched rather than sparsely branched. A tree with smooth, bright bark is better than one with rough, dull bark. Both trunk and branches should be plump and show no signs of shrivelling. A poor pear-tree in the nursery seldom makes a good tree in the orchard. There is great variation in varieties as the trees come from the nursery, a fact to be considered. In New York, two-year-old trees are best.
A good deal of the success that attends the culture of the pear depends on properly setting the young trees and the right care of the young plants. It is superfluous to discuss these operations in detail, but a statement as to proper setting and care will serve as reminders. In this State, pear-trees should always be set in the spring. A young pear-tree should be set in the soil about as deep as it stood in the nursery; in light soils the roots might well be planted a little deeper, and in heavy soils not quite so deep. The soil must be packed firmly about the roots—best done by tramping. Watering is necessary only when the land is parched with drought. When necessary, water should be used liberally. Puddling the roots by dipping them in thin mud before planting serves very well for watering. The surface soil should always be left loose. Rank manure about the roots of young trees is plant infanticide. During the tender nonage of the young pear, cultivation should be intensive; insects and fungi should be kept off; and plants that refuse to grow well must be marked for discarding.
A catch-crop grown between the rows of pears is a profitable adjunct to the pear-orchard for the first four or five years. Few indeed are the pear-orchards in New York that cannot be made to sustain themselves for the first few years by inter-cropping. The crops should be hoed crops, such as potatoes, cabbage, beans, tomatoes, and nearly all crops in demand at the canneries. Along the Hudson, small-fruits are often planted in young pear-orchards, but in Western New York these are not looked upon with favor. Grass and grain are deadly in a young pear-orchard, and no right-minded man would plant them there. This brings us to cultivation.
Cultivation should be the rule; sod mulch, the exception, in growing pears in New York. After pear-trees come into bearing they may be made to produce crops if kept in sod. The grass in sodded orchards should be kept closely mown to form a mulch about the trees. Commercial fertilizers as well as mulch are needed in sodded orchards, and of the several chemical fertilizers nitrogen is most requisite. The man who grows pears in sod must not expect as much fruit, as the crop is lessened in both number and size of the pears. On the other hand, the pears may be better colored, and the trees may be freer from blight.
Tillage is begun in the spring by plowing the land. This operation is followed by cultivation with smoothing-harrow, weeder, or cultivator. There are several reliable guides to tell when and how often a pear-orchard should be cultivated. When the soil becomes dry it should be tilled. A heavy rain should always be followed by the cultivator to prevent the formation of a crust on the surface. At this time, he tills twice who tills quickly. Cultivate when there are clods to be pulverized. Usually a pear-orchard should be cultivated once in two or three weeks until time to sow the cover-crop in midsummer. The depth to till is governed by the season and the nature of the soil. Heavy soils need deep stirring; light soils, shallow stirring. Till moist soils deeply; dry soils, lightly. The time to stop tillage depends on the soil, the climate, and the season. The fruit should be nearly full sized when tillage is stopped and the cover-crop sown.
The cover-crop seed is covered the last time the cultivator goes over the orchard. Clover, vetch, cow-horn turnip, rape, oats, rye, and buckwheat are all used as cover-crops in this State. Combination crops are not popular because of too great cost of seed. The quantity of seed sown is the same as when the crops are grown as farm crops. The crops must be changed from time to time in whatever rotation seems most suitable for the soil. The weather-map must be watched at sowing time to make sure of a moist seed-bed. Whatever the crop, it should be plowed under in the fall or early spring, and under no circumstances should it stand late in the spring to rob the trees of food and moisture. In moist, hot seasons, the cover-crop should be sown earlier than in seasons of slow growth, when, possibly, it acts as a deterrent to blight, and certainly makes more certain thorough ripening of the new wood.
The double nature of pruning must be kept in mind whenever a pruning tool is taken in the pear-orchard. Fruit-trees are pruned to increase the quantity and quality of the crop—this is pruning proper; and to give the trees such form that they are easily managed in the orchard—this is training. Pruning tools are used first when the trees are set, and they should be used every year thereafter as long as the tree lives. The pruning at setting time is particularly important with the pear, since newly set pears are slow and uncertain in starting, and linger in growth for a year or two after going into the orchard. The pruning is much the same as with other trees, but must be done with a little greater care.
The top of the young plant must be pruned to enable the injured root-system to supply the remaining branches with water. The less the roots are injured, the less the top need be cut. Some cut back all of the branches; some remove whole branches and do not head back those that remain. The latter is the better plan for this reason: The top buds on branches are largest and develop first, and the newly set tree will grow best if it develops a large leaf-surface before hot dry weather sets in. Young trees usually have surplus branches; remove those not needed, leaving three, four, or rarely five to form the framework of the tree. A pear so pruned will start growth and acquire vigor more quickly than if all branches are cut back.
A choice must be made when planting as to whether the tree is to be low- or high-headed. The habit of growth of varieties differs so greatly that there can be no rule to determine how high the head of a tree should be started. One can generalize to this extent: The heads of varieties with spreading tops should be started higher than those having an upright or pyramidal top. Without question, the choice should be for a low-headed pear-tree. The trunks of pear-trees suffer terribly from blight and sun-scald. The less trunk and the more it is shaded by branches, the less the tree suffers from these two troubles. Also, low trees are more easily sprayed and pruned; the crop is more easily thinned and harvested; crop and tree are less subject to injury by frost; the top is more quickly formed; and a low-headed tree bears fruit soonest. By low-headed is meant a distance from the ground to the first limb of two feet.
Two shapes of tops are open to choice—the open-centered and the close-centered. In the open-centered, or vase-form top, the tree consists of a short trunk, surmounted by four or five main branches ascending obliquely. In the close-centered top, the trunk is continued above the lower branches and forms the center of the tree. The close-centered pear-tree produces more fruit and is most easily kept to its shape. No doubt it is best for most varieties. The open-centered tree, with its framework of several main branches, has the advantage when trees are attacked by blight, since if one or two branches are destroyed by the disease a part of the tree may still be saved. The head should never be formed by two central leaders forming a crotch, as the trunk is liable to split and ruin the tree.
For several years after planting, the pear needs to be pruned only to train the tree to the height of head determined upon and to form the top. Exceptions are the sorts which produce few branches and thus form straggling heads. This defect is overcome by cutting back some of the branches in the spring, an operation which increases the number of branches. A few other sorts, as Winter Nelis and White Doyenné, have drooping, twisting, wayward branches which can be trained into manageable shape only by cutting back or tying the branches in place. Pear-growers as a rule prune young trees too much. Over-pruning increases the growth of wood and leaf too greatly, and thus delays the fruiting of the plant. A good deal might be said about the use and abuse of heading-in pears—that is, cutting back the terminal growths from year to year. Dwarf pears must be headed-in severely to keep the trees down, but standard trees should be headed-in only to make the tops thicker and broader—a desirable procedure with some varieties.
Old trees often need to be pruned to increase their vigor. Such pruning is often spoken of as pruning for wood. When the tops of pear-trees have dead and dying wood, when the seasonal growth is short and slender, when the crops are small and the pears lack size, or when trees are weakened by disease, a healthy condition may oftentimes be restored by severely cutting back some branches and wholly removing others. In such pruning the following rules ought to be observed:
Weak-growing varieties are pruned heavily; strong-growing kinds, lightly.
Varieties which branch freely need little pruning; those having few and unbranching limbs should be pruned closely.
In cool, damp climates, trees produce much wood and need little pruning; in hot dry climates, growth is scant and trees need much pruning.
Rich, deep soils favor growth; trees in such soils should be pruned lightly. In light or shallow soils, trees produce few and short shoots; the pruning of trees on such soils should be severe.
A good deal is said about pruning for fruit. It is doubtful, however, whether unfruitful pear-trees can be made more fruitful by the pruning recommended for this purpose. When barrenness is caused by the production of wood and foliage at the expense of fruit-buds, as possibly sometimes happens, summer-pruning may check the over-production of growth and cause flower-buds to form. There seems to be no definite experiments to prove this theory in America, nor do pear-growers generally practice this kind of pruning which has been preached so long and so often. To follow the rules in this operation, summer-pruning should be done when the growth for the season has nearly ceased. If done earlier, the shoots cut back start again and the pruning has been useless. If done too late, there is too little time for the production of fruit-buds. In the unequable climate of this country it is most difficult to know when to prune in the summer to meet the requirements of the theory urged so strongly by European pomologists. A weighty objection to summer-pruning in America is that the wounds might and probably would become centers of infection for blight.
There is no attempt to give a full discussion of pruning in this text. Such details as making the cut, covering the wounds, pruning paraphernalia, filling cavities and the amount to prune, belong to texts on pruning. Perhaps two minor details important in growing pears should be mentioned. Suckers or water-sprouts form so freely on branches of pears that they often seriously devitalize the tree, and usually are centers of blight. They should therefore be removed promptly whenever and wherever found. The time to prune the pear is important. If the work is done too early in the winter, injury may result to the tissues near the wound from cold or from checking. If done late in the spring when sap is flowing, the wound becomes wet and sticky and is a suitable place for the growth of fungi and the blight bacterium.
The pear is as easily grafted as any other pome, and the operation is more certain and more often desirable than with any of the stone-fruits. Almost any method of grafting used with orchard fruits is successful with the pear. But the pear is not often grafted in this State after the tree has been set in the orchard. The great objection is that the vigorous growth made by grafts is nearly always nipped by blight. Possibly the lack of affinity between different varieties is more pronounced than with other pomes. The common European varieties cannot be inter-worked without experimental knowledge of how one variety will grow on another, and it is almost impossible to intergraft common varieties with the oriental hybrids. The temptation is strong in this State to graft such sorts as Bartlett and Seckel on Kieffer. This combination is seldom successful; nor, as a rule, can other European pears be grafted on Kieffer, although some growers have succeeded fairly well in growing Seckel on Kieffer.
Thinning the fruit is not a common practice in pear-growing in this State. There is no doubt but that much might be done to improve pears in both size and quality by thinning, for be it remembered that large size of fruit and high quality are usually correlated in pears. Thinning often saves the vigor of the tree, and it is often good orchard management to destroy insect- or disease-infected fruit by thinning. The objection is high cost. Most growers, however, find that it pays to thin. Thinning is usually done as soon as possible after the June drop. It is most difficult to tell, when thinning, what will prove superfluity at harvest. A skilled grower adjusts the size of the crop to the variety, the vigor of the tree, fertility and moisture in the ground, the season, and insects and fungi. Thinning should begin in the winter with the removal of what seem to be superfluous branches, for even at this time fruit-prospects for the ensuing season are fore-shadowed.
Fruit-growing is made up of several quite distinct phases of activity; as, propagation, culture, pruning, pests, harvesting, and marketing. Treated in detail, each of these several operations constitutes matters quite sufficient for separate treatises. In a manual such as this only outlines of present practices are in place. Perhaps of all deciduous fruits the pear needs as particular attention in the various operations which conduct it from the orchard to the table as any other, if, indeed, it is not the most difficult of hardy fruits to handle after it leaves the orchard. The several operations that should be treated in a discussion of handling the pear crop, no matter how brief, are picking, grading, packing, storing, shipping, and marketing.
The time of picking is most important in handling pears. Pears are picked, especially for the markets, long before they are ready to eat out of hand. So harvested, almost without exception, all pears acquire higher quality than when they ripen on the tree. Moreover, when the necessary percentage of sugars and solids has developed to give full flavor the pears are too easily bruised to be shipped. Just how green pears can be harvested and afterward have the rich shades of red and yellow and the delectable flavor of ripe pears develop seems not yet to have been determined.[22] No doubt the stages of development differ somewhat with the variety. In New York, the generally accepted rule is to pick when the stem parts readily from the branch if the fruit is lifted. Some wait until there is a perceptible yellowing of the maturer fruits; others until full-grown, wormy specimens are ripe; still others until the seeds begin to change color. But on the Pacific slope and for the cannery in this State, pears are picked when much greener than in any of the conditions named and yet seem to ripen well. As a matter of economy, the fruits should be left until they attain nearly or quite full size.
The directions just given apply more particularly to the main-crop pears and early and fall sorts. Winter pears in this State should be left on the trees until in danger from freezing. Even so, the season is too short for some choice winter sorts. No matter what the season, pears should be shipped before they reach edible condition. A few of the winter pears, suitable only for culinary purposes, never soften, and change color little or not at all.
Picking pears is not the delicate business that picking the stone-fruits is, but yet must be done with considerable care as a bruise provides a place for subsequent decay. Few picking appliances are needed, but these should be carefully chosen to insure speed and careful handling of the fruit. A full complement of ladders is necessary, and the picking receptacle, either bag, basket, or bucket, should be chosen to fulfill most conveniently its purpose and yet not be a source of danger to the fruit. From the picking receptacle, the pears go to the crate or barrel for carriage to the packing-house; for, unless the fruit is going to the cannery, pears should be graded and packed in the packing-house.
Grading pears is a more difficult operation than grading apples, as mechanical graders have proved of little use, and the work must be done by hand. Only good fruit is worth grading. It follows, that the higher the price and the more special the market, the more carefully should the pears be picked and graded. Pears are usually graded in New York into firsts, seconds, and culls. The State has no law governing the grading and packing of pears as it has of apples and peaches, so that pear-growers must establish their own grades. By common consent of growers and dealers, Grade I consists of pears of one variety, full sized, well formed, free from dirt, skin-breaks, worms, scale, scab or other damage caused by insect or disease, hail pecks, or mechanical injuries. Grade II differs from Grade I only in that the pears may not be of full size nor perfect in form. A leeway of five to ten per cent is allowed for variation incident to grading and handling. Culls are pears which do not meet the requirements of the foregoing grades.
In putting up grades every effort is made to keep the fruit in a package uniform in size. At the beginning of the season the sizes are gauged by putting the pears through rings of the diameter desired. But packers soon become expert in sizing, and with a little practice perform the work quickly and accurately without rings. Of the larger pears, such as Bartlett, Clapp Favorite, Beurré Bosc, and Beurré d’Anjou, fruits are hardly worth putting in a good package that do not measure two and one-fourth inches through the shorter axis.
Grading and sizing pears are greatly neglected, and most of the crop goes to the market in this State wretchedly packed, for which reason maximum prices are seldom received. The industry can never compete successfully with western pear-growing until higher standards are adopted in putting the New York crop on the market.
In common with grading and sizing, packages are neglected in marketing New York pears. Some growers pack in bushel baskets; a few send the crop to market in half-bushel baskets; a large size of the Climax basket is occasionally seen in the markets filled with summer pears or small Seckels; a keg holding about a bushel or more is less used; a pear barrel holding a peck less than an apple barrel was formerly more used than now; Kieffer is often sent to the market in apple barrels. A very few New York growers ship in boxes, but these are few indeed. In all excepting the boxes, the pears, having been graded, are carefully put in the packages, sometimes in layers and sometimes hit or miss, but the package is always faced. Good grades are usually labeled, though the same attention is not given to labeling pears that is given in putting up apples. Truth is, the packing of pears in New York is a decade or two behind the packing of apples.
The commercial pear-grower now stores his pears in cold storage if he keeps them any length of time after harvesting. A few varieties, of which Beurré Bosc is most notable, do not keep well in cold storage, but most of the mainstays in the pear industry keep fairly well in artificial cold. There is, however, much to be learned about the commercial storage of pears. There seems to be little information that can be relied upon as to how low the temperature should go; how humid the atmosphere should be; how long the pears can be kept in good condition; and how different varieties behave under these several conditions.
Perhaps a word should be said as to how the pear can be ripened best in the home. After harvesting, the pears should be placed in a cool sweet-smelling fruit-room in shallow boxes or spread upon shelves to acquire in time full flavor and color. Most pears part with their moisture readily, and the pear-room must not be open to draughts which usually cause the fruits to become hard and leathery or to shrivel. If the pears are to be kept long, wrapping in paper helps to prevent shriveling. Nearly all pears ripen perfectly in cool or cold storage, but a few late winter sorts ripen better if brought into a temperature of 60° or 70° for two or three weeks before their season.
A large part of New York’s pear crop is canned in commercial canneries. Canners usually pay high prices, and the crop, when sold to them, need not be so carefully picked, packed, and otherwise handled. It is a mistake to assume that pears for the cannery can be shaken from the tree or handled roughly otherwise. Neither do the canners want the poor grades, after the good pears have been sent to the market. Large sizes are usually preferred, and the fruits must be well formed, free from serious insect, fungous, or mechanical injuries, and at a particular stage of maturity which the canner specifies. The profits in selling to canners are usually more certain, and are often quite as great as in selling on the markets. The cannery is a splendid safety valve to the pear industry in this State. Pears are not dried commercially in New York as they are in California, although it would seem that here in the center of the apple-drying industry of the world pears might also be dried with profit.
Most of the pear crop of this region is now sold to local buyers or on consignment to city dealers. Co-operative methods are just beginning and promise much. There are several reasons why the pear, even more than the apple, which is more and more going to the markets through co-operative associations, should be handled by organizations of growers. Thus, an association could load a car quickly, which few individual growers can do; pears are not now, but would be, graded and packed under one standard; more favorable transportation rates would be secured; and, most important of all, the pear crop would be distributed to the great markets of the country without the disastrous competition that attends individual marketing. If the pear industry is to grow in the State, pears must be largely marketed through the central packing associations that are now being rapidly organized to sell fruits.
No reliable data can be obtained to show what the costs are in growing pears in this State. It would be hard to obtain such data, for pear-growing is now a game of chance from start to finish. Good pear-lands are not hard to obtain, and the risks to tree and crop attendant on weather are not great, but the trees are everywhere subject to blight; which, despite the recommendations of plant pathologists, cannot be controlled, and which annually destroys thousands of trees, ruins others, and sooner or later upsets calculations of costs and profits in almost every pear-orchard in the State. Other pests, as psylla, the scab-fungus, and codling-moth beset the pear and make profits uncertain. When all goes well, the costs are about the same as in growing apples, while the profits are somewhat greater.[23] But with blight to contend with, most of the economic factors are inconstant, and calculating costs and profits is guessing pure and simple.
The pear is attacked by a half dozen or more diseases in New York, of which two, at least, need treatment every year, in every orchard, and on nearly every variety. One, pear-blight, is about the most malignant of the diseases of the orchard, for which there is no antidote and no alleviation or preventive except by the most drastic sanitary measures. The other, pear-scab, is always present but not always destructive, although some varieties are always injured by it. The scab, however, is amenable to treatment and at its worst only destroys fruit and foliage, seldom endangering the life of the tree. The four or five other diseases of the pear in New York are of minor importance and are readily controlled by the treatment necessary to keep in check the scab-fungus. Pear-blight merits attention first.
Pear-blight is a malignant bacterial disease, very contagious, usually virulent and so terrible in its consequences as to warrant the common name fire-blight. No part of the tree is exempt from destruction by the malign bacterium that causes blight of the pear. Root, trunk, branch, leaf, flower, and fruit are all attacked, turn black and wither under the disease. Few plant diseases produce more disastrous results. The pear competes with the apple in importance in Europe where blight is unknown. In America it is a poor fourth to the apple, peach, and plum, and takes fourth place instead of second because of the ravages of blight. About the most important discovery to be made in pomology is a race of blight-resistant pears. Failing in this, if the pear-industry is to grow, or even continue in its present magnitude, blight-resistant stocks must be found.
The symptoms of pear-blight are so characteristic that the disease cannot be confounded with any other malady or condition of the tree. It appears earliest in the season on the blossoms causing blossom-blight. Attacked by blight, the blossoms wilt, and after the petals fall, fruit and spur show the characteristic blackening of the disease. Blossom-blight may escape the attention of the pear-grower, but twig-blight, a succeeding form of the disease, can escape no one who has the sense of sight. No other disease of the pear brings on such palpable destruction to the tree as twig-blight. No other disease causes such comfortless despair to the grower. Twig, branch, or tree, as the case may be, in all affected parts, turns black, the leaves droop, seeming to show the effects of fire. A marked symptom is, if there can be doubt of those given, that the blackened foliage clings most tenaciously to the dead branches. Twig-blight is the most common manifestation of the disease. Another form of the blight appears as a canker on the trunk and large branches—canker-blight or body-blight. These cankers are dark, smooth, and sunken, with definite margins marked by a crevasse in the winter; but as spring comes on the advancing margins become raised and more or less indefinite. Occasionally an opaque liquid oozes from lenticels newly attacked. On branches, the cankers usually surround a smaller offshoot, sucker, or spur. The disease spreads with great rapidity, by reason of which it is easily told from winter-killing. Injury from cold is also more general, and the foliage browns rather than blackens.
Pear-blight is an American disease, the history of which was briefly given on page 51. Until recently it was confined to regions east of the Rocky Mountains, but since about 1900 it has been a virulent epidemic on the Pacific slope as well, and is now found from coast to coast wherever pears are grown in North America. It seems not to be found in the pear regions of other continents. It attacks the apple, quince, and other pomes as well as the pear, and plant pathologists declare it to be the most destructive disease attacking the pome-fruits. Trees in the nursery suffer as well as those in the orchard. Every variety of the pear bearing edible fruit is attacked. Fortunately, some sorts are more immune than others. Kieffer, Seckel, Winter Nelis, and Duchesse d’Angoulême are most resistant of standard varieties, while Bartlett, Clapp Favorite, and Flemish Beauty are little resistant.
Pear-blight is caused by a bacterium, Bacillus amylovorous, the discovery of which by Burrill in 1877 as a cause of this disease is one of the landmarks in plant pathology. The organisms are dormant during the winter, which they pass in the margins of blight-cankers where moisture is sufficient to keep them alive. With the return of vegetative growth, some sort of fermentation seems to set in and drops of a thick, opaque liquid ooze out of the margins of blight-cankers. These contain countless numbers of the blight bacteria which may swarm into the healthy tissues adjoining, or be carried by any one of the great number of kinds of insects which visit trees at flowering time to the pear-blossoms, to growing tips, or to wounds in tender bark. The pruner with his tools may be an unwilling agent in carrying the bacteria from tree to tree. The organisms now multiply apace, killing tissues wherever they find entrance and causing the several manifestations of the disease described under symptoms. Were it not that the bacteria are killed by sunlight and even brief periods of drying, the life of the plants attacked would be the only limits of the disease unless checked by man.
Theoretically, pear-blight can be controlled. Practically, pear-growers fail to control it. Control consists in orchard sanitation whereby the bacterium causing the disease is kept out of the orchard. This proves all but impossible in the average orchard. Sometimes, without doubt, the virulency of the disease is lessened. Possibly, if all the recommendations of plant pathologists could be put in practice, pear-growers would more often succeed in keeping blight down, but the necessary sanitary measures require such watchful care and so great an expense that few pear-growers can carry out the program for controlling this disease. Of those who have studied methods of control and have given advice on the subject, Hesler and Whetzel[24] are as reliable as any and we quote herewith their recommendations: