CHE REFERENCE LIBRARY - ZetaTalk

THE NURSERY-LIST 385The pear can also be gro’wn on the apple, thorn and mountainash. On the apple it is short-lived, although pear cions, set. in the topof an old apple tree, often bear large fruits for a few years. Whenpear stocks cannot be had, pears are sometimes xorkcd oil appleroots. If the cions are long they will emit roots, and when the applenurse fails the pear becomes own-rootecl. Good dwarf trees are oftenreported on the thorn. The subject is little understood. The mnuntainash is sometimes used for the purpose of growing pears on asandy soil, but its use appears to be of little consequence. All thesespecial stocks are of doubtful utility.Pears of the Le C’onte and Kieffer type are often grown from cuttingsin the South. C.‘uttings are made of the recent mature growth,al)out a foot in length, and are planted in the open ground, aftertllc mannt~r of long grape cuttings. Le Conte, Garber, Smith, andotflthr vcbry strong growers of the Chinese type, are probably bestwhtbn grown from cut t.ings. They soon overgrow French stocks, asalso apple stocks, which ha-is been used to some extent ; but if longcionj are used, own-rooted trees are soon obtained, and the stock willhave served a useful purpose in pushing the cion the first two orthree years..Pecan (Carya, or flicoria, Pecan). J~u&tndacecP. (C. A.Heed.)The species is propagated by seeds, varieties by budding andgrafting. Xutg for planting should be gathered as soon as ripe,cured so as to rt’mo\‘( excess moisture, without drying, ana plantedat once, or bettclr stratified or held in storage until spring. Thesoil should be a fertile loam, preferably underlain with a firm butnot hard clay suljsoil, and moist without being wet. It shouldbt- well preparecl and the nuts planted about 3 inches deep, 8 t.o 10inches apart in the row and the rows 4 to fi feet apart. In the South,well-sclt~c*te(l nuts planted in *January should make seedlings fitfor grafting in one to three years. Some of those grafted in oneyear shouhl be of sufficient size for transplanting to permanentorchart positions the following winter, or t.wo years after the nutslvere plnntt4. Xs budding is performed only in summer, the earliestthut any of these s41ings ordinarily cxn 1~ user1 by this method iswhen eighteen months of age.The advantages of grafting over budding, or vice versa, aredependent more on the convenience and skill of the operator thanon the method. In either case preferably the operation should be‘2(’