At the suggestion of neighbors he drove rusty nails into the trunks, and buried bags of pear seeds at the foot of them, and he fertilized the inclosure richly.

But all to no purpose.

Finally grandmother advised the old Squire to spread the leached ashes from her leach tub--after she had made soap and hulled corn in the spring--on the ground inside the pen.
The old Squire did so, and the next spring both trees blossomed.

They bore bountifully that summer and every season afterward, until they died.
We had a young neighbor, Alfred Batchelder, who was fond of foraging by night for plums, grapes, and pears in the orchards of his neighbors.

His own family did not raise fruit; they thought it too much trouble to cultivate the trees.