Buch lesen: «Soil Culture», Seite 21

PEAR

The pear is a native of Europe and Asia, and, in its natural state, is quite as unfit for the table as the crab-apple. Cultivation has given it a degree of excellence that places it in the first rank among dessert-fruits. No other American fruit commands so high a price. New varieties are obtained by seedlings, and are propagated by grafting and budding: the latter is generally preferred. Root-grafting of pears is to be avoided; the trees will be less vigorous and healthy. The difficulty of raising pear-seedlings has induced an extensive use of suckers, to the great injury of pear-culture. Fruit-growers are nearly unanimous in discarding suckers as stocks for grafting. The difficulty in raising seedling pear-trees is the failure of the seeds to vegetate. A remedy for this is, never to allow the seeds to become dry, after being taken from the fruit, until they are planted. Keep them in moist sand until time to plant them in the spring, or plant as soon as taken from the fruit. The spring is the best time for planting, as the ground can be put in better condition, rendering after-culture much more easy. The pear will succeed well on any good soil, well supplied with suitable fertilizers. The best manures for the pear are, lime in small quantities, wood-ashes, bones, potash dissolved, and applied in rotten wood, leaves, and muck, with a little stable-manure and iron-filings—iron is very essential in the soil for the pear-tree. In all soils moderately supplied with these articles, all pear-trees grafted on seedling-stocks, and those that flourish on the foreign quince, will do well. A good yellow loam is most natural; light sandy or gravelly land is unfavorable. It is better to cart two or three loads of suitable soil for each tree on such land. The practice of budding or grafting on apple-stocks, on crab-apples, and on the mountain-ash, should be utterly discarded. For producing early fruit, quince-stocks and root-pruning are recommended.

Setting out pear-trees properly is of very great importance. The requisites are, to have the ground in good condition, from manure on the crop of the last season, and thoroughly subsoiled and drained. Pear-trees delight in rather heavy land, if it be well drained; but water, standing in the soil about them, is utterly ruinous. Pear-trees, well transplanted on moderately rich land, well subsoiled and well drained, will almost always succeed. By observing the following brief directions, any cultivator may have just such shaped tops on his pear-trees as he desires. Cut short any shoots that are too vigorous, that those around them may get their share of the sap, and thus be enabled to make a proportionate growth. After trees have come into bearing, symmetry in the form of their heads may be promoted by pinching off all the fruit on the weak branches, and allowing all on the strong ones to mature.

Those two simple methods, removing the fruit from too vigorous shoots, and cutting in others, half or two-thirds their length, will enable one to form just such heads as he pleases, and will prove the best preventives of diseases.

Diseases.—There are many insects that infest pear-orchards, in the same manner as they do apples, and are to be destroyed in the same way. The slugs on the leaves are often quite annoying. These are worms, nearly half an inch long, olive-colored, and tapering from head to tail, like a tadpole. Ashes or quicklime, sprinkled over the leaves when they are wet with dew or rain, is an effectual remedy.

Insect-Blight.—This has been confounded with the frozen-sap blight, though they are very different. In early summer, when the shoots are in most vigorous growth, you will notice that the leaves on the ends of branches turn brown, and very soon die and become black. This is caused by a worm from an egg, deposited just behind or below a bud, by an insect. The egg hatches, and the worm perforates the bark into the wood, and commits his depredations there, preventing the healthy flow of the sap, which kills the twig above. Soon after the shoot dies, the worm comes out in the form of a winged insect, and seeks a location to deposite its eggs, preparatory to new depredations. The remedy is to cut off the shoots affected at once, and burn them. The insect-blight does not affect the tree far below the location of the worm. Watch your trees closely, and cut off all affected parts as soon as they appear, and burn them immediately, and you will soon destroy all the insects. But very soon after the appearance of the blight they leave the limb; hence a little delay will render your efforts useless. These insects often commit the same depredations on apple and quince-trees. We had an orchard in Ohio seriously affected by them. We know no remedy but destruction as above.

The Frozen-Sap Blight is a much more serious difficulty. Its nature and origin are now pretty well settled. In every tree there are two currents of sap: one passes up through the outer wood, to be digested by the leaves; the other passing down in the inner bark, deposites new wood, to increase the size of the tree. Now, in a late growth of this kind of wood, the process is rapidly going on, at the approach of cold weather, and the descending sap is suddenly frozen, in this tender bark and growing wood. This sudden freezing poisons the sap, and renders the tree diseased. The blight will show itself, in its worst form, in the most rapid growing season of early summer, though the disease commenced with the severe frosts of the previous autumn. Its presence may be known by a thick, clammy sap, that will exude in winter or spring pruning, and in the discoloration of the inner bark and peth of the branches. On limbs badly affected on one side, the bark will turn black and shrivel up. But its effects in the death of the branches only occur when the growth of the tree demands the rapid descent of the sap: then the poisoned sap which was arrested the previous fall, in its downward passage, is diluted and sent through the tree; and when it is abundant, the whole tree is poisoned and destroyed in a few days; in others more slightly affected, it only destroys a limb or a small portion of the top. Another effect of this fall-freezing of sap and growing wood, is to rupture the sap-vessels, and thus prevent the inner bark from performing its functions. This theory is so well established, that an intelligent observer can predict, in the fall, a blight-season the following summer. If the summer be cool, and the fall warm and damp, closed by sudden cold, the blight will be troublesome the next season, because the plentiful downward flow of sap, and rapid growth of wood, were arrested by sudden freezing. If the summer is favorable, and the wood matures well before cold weather, the blight will not appear. This is of the utmost practical moment to the pear-culturist. Anything in soil, situation, or pruning, that favors early maturity of wood, will serve as a preventive of blight; hence, cool, moist situations are not favorable in climates subject to sudden and severe cold weather in autumn. Root-pruning and heading-in, which always induce early maturity of wood, are of vast importance; they will, almost always, prevent frozen-sap blight. If, in spite of you, your pear-trees will make a late luxuriant growth, cut off one half of the most vigorous shoots before hard freezing, and you will check the flow of sap, by removing the leaves and shoots that control it, and save your trees. If blight makes its appearance, cut off at once all the parts affected. The effects will be visible in the wood and inner bark, far below the external apparent injury. Remove the whole injured part, or it will poison the rest of the tree. When this frozen sap is extensive, it poisons and destroys the whole tree; when slight, the tree often wholly recovers. If a spot of black, shrivelled bark appears, shave it off, deep enough to remove the affected parts, and cover the wound with grafting-wax. Remove all affected limbs. These are the only remedies. But the practice of pruning both roots and branches will prove a certain preventive. A tree growing in grass, where it grows more slowly, and matures earlier in the season, will escape this blight; while one growing in very rich garden soil, and continuing to grow until cold weather, will suffer severely. The effects on orchards, in different soils and localities everywhere, confirm this theory. A little care then will prevent this evil, which has sometimes been so great as to discourage attempts at raising pears. In some localities, some of the finer varieties of pears, as the virgalieu, are ruined by cracking on the trees before ripening. Applications of ashes, salt, charcoal, iron-filings, and clay on light lands, will remedy this evil.

Distances apart.—All fruit-trees had better occupy as little ground as is consistent with a healthy vigorous growth. They are manured and well cultivated, at a much less expense. The trees protect each other against inclement weather. The fruit is more easily harvested. And it is a great saving of land, as nothing else can be profitably grown in an orchard of large fruit-trees. The two kinds of pear-trees, dwarf and standard, may be planted together closely and be profitable for early and abundant bearing. The plan given on the next page of a pear-orchard, recommended in Cole's Fruit Book, is the best we have seen.

In the plan the trees on pear-stocks, designed for standards, occupy the large black spots where the lines intersect. They are thirty-three feet apart. The small spots indicate the position of dwarf-trees on quince stocks. Of these there are three on each square rod. An acre then would have forty standard trees, and four hundred and eighty dwarfs. The latter will come into early bearing, and be profitable, long before the former will produce any fruit. This will induce and repay thorough cultivation. They should be headed in, and finally removed, as the standards need more room. One acre carefully cultivated in this way, will afford an income sufficient for the support of a small family.

Plan of a Pear-Orchard.

Gathering and Preserving.—Most fruits are better when allowed fully to ripen on the tree. But with pears, the reverse is true; most of them need to be ripened in the house, and some of them, as much as possible, excluded from the light. Gather when matured, and when a few of the wormy full-grown ones begin to fall, but while they adhere somewhat firmly to the tree. Barrel or box them tight, or put them in drawers in a cool dry place. About the time for them to become soft, put them in a room, with a temperature comfortable for a sitting-room, and you will soon have them in their greatest perfection. They do better in a warm room, wrapped in paper or cotton. A few only ripen well on the trees. Those ripened in the house keep much longer and better.

Varieties.—The London Horticultural Society have proved seven hundred varieties, from different parts of the world, in their experimental garden. Cole speaks of eight hundred and Elliott of twelve hundred varieties. There are now probably more than three thousand growing in this country. Many seedlings, not known beyond the neighborhood where they originated, may be among our very best. From six to ten varieties are all that need be cultivated. We present the following list, advising cultivators to select five or six to suit their own tastes and circumstances, and cultivate no more. We do not give the usual descriptions of the varieties selected. The mass of cultivators, for whom this work is specially intended, will never learn and test the descriptions. They will depend upon their nursery-man, and bud and graft from those they have tasted.

We give their names and some of their synonyms, their adaptation to quince or pear stocks, their manner of growth, and time of maturity. These will enable the culturist to select whatever best suits his taste; adapted to quince or pear stocks; for the table or kitchen; for summer, fall, or winter use, and for home or the market.

Belle Lucrative.—Fondante d' Automne, Seigneur d' Esperin. Tree of moderate growth, but a great bearer. A fine variety, on quince or pear, better perhaps on the pear stock. Season, last of September.

Beurré Easter with fifteen synonyms that few would ever read. Best on quince. Requires a warm soil and considerable care in ripening, when it proves one of the best. Its season—from January to May—makes it very desirable. Large, yellowish-green, with russet spots.

Bartlett.

Bartlett.—William's, William's Bon Chretien, Poire Guilliaume. Tree, a vigorous grower, and a regular, early, good bearer, of long, handsome, perfectly-formed fruit; on the quince or pear stock. Time, August and September.

Beurré Diel.

Beurré Diel.—Diel, Diel's Butterbirne, Dorothee Royale, Grosse Dorothee, Beurré Royale, Des Trois Tours, De Melon, Melon de Kops, Beurré Magnifique, Beurré Incomparable. Grows well on quince or pear, but perhaps does best on quince. Large, beautiful, luscious fruit. Season, October to last of November.

White Doyenne.

White Doyenne.—Virgalieu. Tree vigorous and hardy on pear or quince. Everywhere esteemed as one of the very best. Needs care in supplying proper manure and clay on light soils, to prevent the fruit from cracking. September to November. If we could have but one we should choose this.

Columbia.—Columbian Virgalieu. Native of New York, bearing abundantly, a uniformly smooth, fair, large fruit. Color, fine golden yellow, dotted with gray. Season, December and January.

Flemish Beauty.

Flemish Beauty.—Belle de Flanders, &c. This is a large, beautiful, and delicious pear. One of the finest in its season, but does not last long. Ripens last of September. Very fine on the quince, and is excellent on the rich prairie-lands of the West. Deserves increased attention.

Beurré d'Aremberg.—Duc d'Aremberg, and eight other synonyms. Tree very hardy, does well on the pear stock, and bears early, annually, and abundantly. A very fine foreign variety. The fruit hangs on the tree well, and may be ripened at will from December to February, by placing in a warm room, when you would ripen them.

Buffum.—A native of Rhode Island, and very successful wherever grown. A great bearer of handsome fruit, though not of the best quality. It is, however, an excellent orchard pear. Fruit, medium size, ripening in September.

Louise Bonne of Jersey.—William the Fourth, and three other useless foreign synonyms. Not surpassed, on the quince. Tree very vigorous, producing a great abundance of large fruit. Season, October.

Madeleine.—Magdalen, Citron des Carmes. This bears an abundance of small but delicious fruit. Is valuable also on account of its season—the last half of July. Good on pear or quince. Must be checked in its growth, on very rich land, or it will be subject to the frozen sap-blight.

Onondaga.—American origin. Equally good on pear or quince. Large, hardy, and very productive tree. The fruit is very large, fine golden yellow when ripe. Excellent for market. Season, October and November.

Pound Pear.—Winter Belle, and twelve other synonyms, which are unimportant. This is the great winter-pear for cooking. The tree is a very vigorous grower and great bearer. A very profitable orchard variety. December to March.

Prince's St. Germain.—New St. Germain, Brown's St. Germain. Hardy and productive. Good keeper, ripening as easily and as well as an apple. December to March.

Seckel.

Seckel.—There are a number of synonyms, but it is always known by this name. Tree is small, but a good and regular bearer of small excellent fruit. Time in warm climates, September and October.

Steven's Genesee.—Stephen's Genesee, Guernsey. Desirable for all orchards and gardens, on quince or pear. Fine grower and very productive. Fruit large and excellent. Elliott says "even the wind-falls are very fine."

Vicar of Wakefield.—Eight synonyms, but it will hardly be mistaken by nursery-men. Does well on quince. It is thrifty and very productive of fruit of second quality. Yet it is generally profitable. November to January.

Winter Nellis.—Its six foreign synonyms are of no consequence. This is the best of all winter-pears, grown on quince or pear. Exceedingly well adapted to the rich western prairies. An early and great bearer. November to January 15.

Gray Doyenne.

Gray Doyenne.—A superior October pear. Tree hardy and productive on both pear or quince. Partakes much of the excellence of the White Doyenne.

From these you can select five or six just adapted to your wishes. The diversity of views, of the merits of different varieties of pears, arises mainly from the influence of location, soil, and culture. The established known varieties, may be grown in great perfection anywhere, with suitable care. At the West they must be root-pruned and headed-in until they are ten years old, after which they will be hardy and productive. If allowed to grow as fast as they will incline to, on alluvial soils, when they are exposed to severe winters, they will disappoint growers. With care they will be sure and profitable.

PEPPERS

The red peppers, cultivated in this country, are used for pickling, for pepper-sauce, as a condiment for food, and as a domestic medicine.

Varieties—are named principally from their shape. The large squash-pepper is best for green pickles, on account of its size and tenderness. The Cayenne, a small, long variety, much resembling the original from which it is named, is very pungent, used mostly for pepper-sauce. Grind, not very fine, any of the varieties, and they are useful on any food of a cold nature and not easily digestible. They are all good for medicinal purposes. The capsicum needs a dry, warm soil, with exposure to the sun. Plants should stand two feet apart each way; as they are slow growers, they should be started in an early hotbed. Many will ripen during summer, and may be gathered. In the fall, when frost comes, the vines will be covered with blossoms and with peppers of all sizes. Fall-grown green ones, strung on a thread, and hung in a warm, dry room, will ripen finely. They are very hardy, and may be transplanted without injury. Hen-manure is best for them.

PEPPERGRASS

This is a variety of cress, of quick growth, used as lettuce. On a rich, finely-pulverized soil, sow the seeds in drills, fifteen inches apart, and cover very lightly. Sow thick and water in dry weather. For use, cut the tops while they are very tender. A second crop will grow, but inferior to the first. The water-cress, growing spontaneously by rills and springs, is a kind of wild peppergrass, and is by some persons more esteemed than the garden variety. We prefer early lettuce to cresses or peppergrass, and see no reason for their cultivation, but their rapid growth.

PLOWING

This is one of the most important matters in soil-culture. When, how, and how much, shall we plow? are the three questions involving the whole. When should plowing be done? As it respects wet or dry, plow sandy or gravelly land whenever you are ready. It will neither be hard when dry, nor injured by being plowed when very wet. Good loams may be plowed at all times except when excessively wet. Clays can only be worked profitably when neither excessively wet or dry. Plowing land in a warm rain is almost equal to a coat of manure. Plowing in a light snow in the spring will injure it the whole season. We have noticed a marked difference in corn growing but a rod apart, on land where snow was plowed in, and the other plowed two or three days later, after the snow was gone; this difference was noticeable in the rows throughout the entire field. Spring or fall plowing is a question that has been much discussed. Sod-land is better plowed in the fall. The action of winter rains and frosts on the turf is beneficial. The same is true of land trenched deep, where much of the hard, poor subsoil is brought to the surface: it is benefited by winter exposure. Other cultivated fields are injured by fall-plowing, unless it be very early. All stubble-land is much benefited by being plowed as soon as the grain is taken off. The weeds and stubble, plowed under, will be decomposed by the warm weather and rains, and benefit the soil almost as much as an ordinary coat of manure. Plowed late, such action does not take place, and the surface is injured by winter-exposure: hence, do all the early fall-plowing possible, but plow nothing late in the fall but sod-land.

How shall we plow? All land should be subsoiled, except that having a light, porous subsoil; one deep plowing on such land is sufficient. Subsoiling is done by using two teams at once—one with a common plow, running deep, and the other with a subsoil-plow with no mould-board, and which will, consequently, stir and disintegrate the earth to the depth at which it runs, without throwing it to the surface. The next surface-furrow will cover up this loosened subsoil. In this way, land may be plowed eighteen inches deep, to the great benefit of any crop grown on it. If the surface be well manured, this method of plowing will place the manure between the first furrow and the subsoil, and increase its value. Such plowing is very valuable on land for young fruit-trees. There is another method, which we denominate double-plowing, which is more beneficial than ordinary subsoiling: it is performed by two common plows, one following in the furrow of the other; the first furrow need not be very deep—let the furrow in the bottom of the first be as deep as possible, and thrown out upon the surface; the next furrow will throw the surface and manure into the bottom of the deep furrow; the next furrow will cover this surface-soil and manure very deep, and, as manure always works up, it will impregnate the whole. This, for garden-vegetables, berries, nurseries, or young orchards, is the best form of plowing that we have ever tried. It may be done with one team, by simply changing the gauge of the clevis every time round, gauging it light for the first furrow, and deep for the second. We once prepared a plat in this way with one team, on which cabbages made a remarkable growth, even in a dry season. Still a farther improvement would be a light coat of fine manure on the surface. All furrows, in every description of plowing, should be near enough together to move the whole, leaving no hard places between them. The usual "cut and cover" system, to get over a large area in a day, is miserable economy. The more evenly and flatly land can be turned over in plowing, the better it will be; it retards the growth of weeds, and secures a better action upon substances plowed under. An exception to deep plowing is in breaking up the original prairies of the West: they have to be broken with plows kept sharp as a knife, and not more than two inches deep. The grass then dies and the sod rots. But plowed deep, the grass comes up through the turf, and will prove troublesome for two or three years. It must also be broken at a certain season of the year, to insure success. It may be profitably done for two months after the grass gets a good start in the spring.

How much is it best to plow land? Once double-plowed, or thoroughly subsoiled, and well turned over, is better than more. Land once plowed so as to disintegrate the whole to the depth of the furrow, will produce more, and require less care, than the same would do if cross-plowed once or twice. Excessive plowing is a positive injury. All land should be broken up once in three or four years, and not kept longer than that under the plow at one time. Some farmers keep land perpetually in grass, refusing to have a plow touch it on any condition. They see wrong tillage produce barrenness. But by this practice they are great losers; they never get over one half the hay or pasturage that could be obtained by frequent tillage and manuring, and a rotation of crops.