Pruning Pears

The Pear bears its fruit on spurs, which mature slowly but steadily. Before the days of the Quince stock for Pears, the spurs developed very slowly, hence the old line:

"Plant Pears, plant for your heirs".

This is no longer apposite. Nurserymen graft Pears on to the Quince stock, and then send them out to customers in a fair way for bearing. As a matter of fact, fruit generally comes the second or third year after planting, and thereafter pretty regularly. The object of the grower should be to get a bush with from ten to fifteen main branches quite clear of each other, and growing outward, just as in the case of Apples. Such trees are sure to form fruit spurs quickly unless rich soil encourages over-vigorous growth, in which case root pruning will be needed. When the trees have developed, the annual pruning will consist of pruning back the side shoots in winter, leaving the fruit buds at the base. These fruit buds come the quicker if summer pruning is practised (see June and July chapters).

Pruning Plums And Damsons

These fruits bear on the mature wood, but not wholly on spurs. After the first exuberance of youth is spent (and if considerable it can be curbed by root pruning), the trees do not make a great deal of coarse annual growth. They form spurs and stubs, on which they bear. They also form fruit buds along the mature shoots, like Cherries and some Apples. Such side shoots as exist are generally short, and may be cut close back in winter.

Use Of Tree Primings

The shoots cut out of fruit trees in winter are best burned, because the eggs of destructive caterpillars are sometimes attached to them; but if it is desired to graft some trees in spring, a few of the best shoots may be tied into a bundle and laid in the soil in a shady place, or in a cool outhouse, until spring (see Chapter III (March. The Dawn Of Spring).).

Early Indoor Grapes

In those gardens where Vines are forced so as to yield early supplies of Grapes, it will soon be necessary to start the canes into growth by maintaining a temperature of not less than 500, and securing a moist atmosphere by keeping the house closed, except for an hour or two on sunny mornings, and damping the walls and floors. Warmth and moisture encourage the bursting of the buds.

Marie Louise, one of the best-flavoured of ale Pears, but not hardy enough for the open in exposed places, and should therefore be grown on a wall.

Amateurs' Vines

Amateurs who have only one house of Vines, and who are unable to give constant skilled attention, should not attempt this early forcing, but should let the plants rest until spring. The work for them at this period of the year is to prune and clean the Vines, if this work was not done in the autumn. The pruning consists of shortening the side shoots (termed "laterals") which bore fruit the previous summer to their base, where there should be one or two plump buds. There is thus nothing left except the main rods or canes, with the buds, which will give the current year's fruiting canes in due course. If there has been any mealy bug (a noisome white insect, which gathers in clusters on the Vines, and even spreads to the Grapes, rendering them filthy), the rods should be scrubbed with a paraffin-oil and soft-soap mixture, which may be prepared by boiling a pound of soft soap in a quart of water, stirring in half a pint of paraffin oil, and working the whole up with a syringe in five gallons of water.