Though this is not a new pear, it endures extreme cold so well here, it is well worthy of trial further North, as an early pear of most excellent quality. It is a seedling of the Seckel, which it very closely resembles in tree and foliage.

Each year in this part of the world, there is more inquiry for pear trees, and each year as more of the wildness (humus) gets out of the soil, they appear to do better.

The one great fault is the style of trees that are planted. Last fall I asked the most successful pear grower in Pennsylvania,what he considered the best form for a pear tree, how long a trunk he wanted? He spoke up quick and sharp, "I do not want a pear tree with any trunk; I want them to branch from the ground up like a Norway Spruce." That is it exactly, dear reader. Nine-tenths of the pear trees planted in the West were utterly spoiled by being pruned up before they were planted. If pear trees should have no bare trunk in woody and hilly Pennsylvania, how is it in the treeless, level, windy West? Think of it, a young pear tree with from three to five feet of naked trunk on our prairies! Why it is as bad as a man with only shirt and bear skin drawers on, crossing the prairie on a cold, January day. Why, if I were to plant another pear orchard I would not take what are called first class two and three year old pear trees, as a gift, and plant them as they come from the nursery with three to five feet of naked trunk.

We nurserymen are not to blame! We cannot sell trees of the right kind; if we grow them people won't have them. Now if you want a good tree or a good orchard, the only way to do is to buy good trees one year from bud, or two years from root graft (I greatly prefer the last); plant them out on dry and rather poor soil, cut them back to a foot or eighteen inches; cultivate them thoroughly four to five years, and never touch them with a knife after the first cutting back, except, if the twigs make a growth of over twenty inches, cut them back to that point.