pears have
been top-grafted on this tree and have blighted, but the blight did not
affect the rest of the tree. During the many seasons I have had this
pear the tip of one twig only showed a very slight trace the past
season, but I did not determine it was really blight. It is practically
immune.

I have also worked the Birch-Leaved pear, _Pyrus betulifolia_, Bunge, a
native of northern China, and a choice ornamental tree. Trees of this
species were received from a nursery in Germany in the fall of 1896 and
have proven perfectly hardy and quite resistant to blight. The fruit is
quite small, usually less than one-half inch in diameter, covered with
thick russet. _Betulifolia_ means birch-leaved, alluding to the shape of
the leaf.

Now, the pear is a difficult thing to work with on account of blight.
What is blight? It is an American bacterial disease, not found in the
home of the pear, Asia or Europe, so that during the 6,000 years of its
cultivation of recorded history the pear has never had to meet the
bacterial enemy known as blight. That is one of the reasons, I presume,
why they have such strict quarantine in Europe against American trees.
The question with pears is, will they stand blight or not? They are
spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in California to keep out
blight. Blight is a native of the northeast United States, and they are
keeping it down on the Pacific slope, but they are always on the edge of
the precipice. The whole pear culture of America is in an unsatisfactory
state, owing to this danger.

With these two northern pears as a foundation, I have endeavored to
secure seedlings with fruit of large size and choice quality by
hybridizing them with many of the best cultivated pears from Germany,
France, England, Central Russia and Finland, as well as with some of the
best varieties from the eastern pear-growing regions of the United
States. The work has been done mostly under glass in our fruit-breeding
greenhouse. Some of these fruits weighed one and one-fourth pounds. Some
of the resulting seedlings are subject to blight, while many have thus
far shown immunity. Since it is impossible to determine their relative
immunity to blight except by distributing them for trial elsewhere, I
sent out scions in the spring of 1915 of thirty-nine of these new
seedlings to twenty-four men in several states. These varieties are
under restrictions until fruited and deemed worthy of further
propagation.

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