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 la