Many suppose, when reading of the necessity of pruning dwarf pear-trees, to make them bushy and induce early bearing, that the lower limbs should all be taken off and only an occasional end branch be shortened. We therefore, in order to disabuse any such impression, give an illustration here of a Rosteizer pear-tree, shortened in annually from its first year's growth, and now five years old. We show it just as it is, although it is apparent that little extra care in cutting would have avoided the knobs of dead wood now seen on some of the earlier cuts. Recently we passed through an amateur's grounds, who, in showing us his dwarf pears, drew our attention, with great apparent satisfaction to himself, to his summer pinching, and the consequent production of fruit buds at the terminus; but although we did not say so, because of his sensitiveness, we confess we felt annoyed that any one should copy from him, because'in his summer pinching he had waited until the branches had grown one to two feet, and the result is, that next year his trees will throw out a world of cross shoots, with little elongation at ends, and necessitate a complete catting back the next year, thus losing at least one if not two years of time.

If any of our readers have committed a like blunder, our advice to them is to cut back this coming fall or winter pruning, without regard to terminal fruit buds, but with regard to the ultimate form and durability of the tree, for it is all-important that the leading supporting limb buds should be kept near the base or below fruit bud.

Fig. 113. - Rosteizer Pear - Tree.