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.
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.