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Pears are grafted on pear stock., on quince stocks, or on those of the white thorv. The last is best, because most durable, and, dwarf trees, much the best, because they do not throw up wood so big and so lofty.
For orchards, pear stocks are best; but not from suckers on any account. They are sure to fill the orchard with suckers. The pruning for your pear trees in the garden should be that of the peach. The pears will grow higher; but they may be made to spread at bottom, and that will keep them from towering too much.
They should stand together, in one of the Plats, 10 or II. The sorts of pears are numerous; the six that I should choose are, the Vergalouse, the Winter Bergamot, the D'Auche, the Beurre, the Chaumontelle, the Winter Bonchretian.
PLUMS
How is it that we see so few plums in America, when the markets are supplied with cart loads in such a chilly, shady, and blighty country as England. A Green gage Plum is very little inferior to the very finest peach; and I never tasted a better Green gage than I have at New York. It must, therefore, be negligence.
But Plums are prodigious bearers, too; and would be very good for hogs as well as peaches. This tree is grafted upon plum stocks, raised from stones by all means; for suckers send out a forest of suckers. The pruning is precisely that of the peach.
The six trees that I would have in the garden should be 4 Green gages, 1 Orlean, 1 Blue Perdigron.
QUINCE
Should grow in a moist place and in very rich ground. It is raised from cuttings, or layers, and these are treated like other cuttings and layers. Quinces are dried like apples.
RASPBERRY
A sort of woody herb, but produces fruit that vies, in point of crop as well as flavor, with that of the proudest tree. I have never seen them fine in America since I saw them covering hundreds of thousands of acres of ground in the Province of New Brunswick.
They come there even in the interstices of the rocks, and, when the Augrust sun has parched up the leaves, the landscape is red with the fruit.
Where woods have been burnt down, the raspberry and the huckleberry instantly spring up, divide the surface between them, and furnish autumnal food for flocks of pigeons that darken the earth beneath their flight.
Whence these plants come, and cover spots thirty or forty miles square, which have been covered with woods for ages upon ages, I leave for philosophers to say, contenting myself with relating how they come and how they are treated in gardens.
They are raised from suckers, though they may be raised from cuttings. The suckers of this year, are planted out in rows, six feet apart, and the plants two feet apart in the rows. This is done in the fall, or early in the spring.
At the time of planting they should be cut down to within afoot of the ground. They will bear a little, and they will send out several suckers which will bear the next year. About four is enough to leave, and those of the strongest. These should be cut off in the fall, or early in spring, to within four feet of the ground, and should be tied to a small stake.
A straight branch of Locust is best, and then the stake lasts a lifetime at least, let the life be as long as it may. The next year more suckers come up, which are treated in the same way. Fifty clumps are enough, if well managed.
There are white and red, some like one best and some the other. To have them fine, you must dig in manure in the Autumn, and keep the ground clean during the Summer by hoeing. I have tried to dry the fruit; but it lost its flavor. Raspberry Jam is a deep red sugar; and raspberry wine is red brandy, rum, or whiskey; neither having the taste of the fruit.
To eat cherries, preserved in spirits, is only an apology, and a very poor and mean one, for dram drinking; a practice which every man ought to avoid, and the very thought of giving way to which ought to make the cheek of a woman redden with shame.
For tips on burning sage and russian sage, visit the Plants And Flowers website.
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