A large part of New York's pear crop is canned in commercial canneries. Canners usually pay high prices, and the crop, when sold to them, need not be so carefully picked, packed, and otherwise handled. It is a mistake to assume that pears for the cannery can be shaken from the tree or handled roughly otherwise. Neither do the canners want the poor grades, after the good pears have been sent to the market. Large sizes are usually preferred, and the fruits must be well formed, free from serious insect, fungous, or mechanical injuries, and at a particular stage of maturity which the canner specifies. The profits in selling to canners are usually more certain, and are often quite as great as in selling on the markets. The cannery is a splendid safety valve to the pear industry in this State. Pears are not dried commercially in New York as they are in California, although it would seem that here in the center of the apple-drying industry of the world pears might also be dried with profit. Most of the pear crop of this region is now sold to local buyers or on consignment to city dealers. Co-operative methods are just beginning and promise much. There are several reasons why the pear, even more than the apple, which is more and more going to the markets through co-operative associations, should be handled by organizations of growers. Thus, an association could load a car quickly, which few individual growers can do; pears are not now, but would be, graded and packed under one standard; more favorable transportation rates would be secured; and, most important of all, the pear crop would be distributed to the great markets of the country without the disastrous competition that attends individual marketing. If the pear industry is to grow in the State, pears must be largely marketed through the central packing associations that are now being rapidly organized to sell fruits. No reliable data can be obtained to show what the costs are in growing pears in this State. It would be hard to obtain such data, for pear-growing is now a game of chance from start to finish. Good pear-lands are not hard to obtain, and the risks to tree and crop attendant on weather are not great, but the trees are everywhere subject to blight; which, despite the recommendations of plant pathologists, cannot be controlled, and which annually destroys thousands of trees, ruins others, and sooner or later upsets calculations of costs and profits in almost every pear-orchard in the State. Other pests, as psylla, the scab-fungus, and codling-moth beset the pear and make profits uncertain. When all goes well, the costs are about the same as in growing apples, while the profits are somewhat greater.[23] But with blight to contend with, most of the economic factors are inconstant, and calculating costs and profits is guessing pure and simple. DISEASES OF THE PEAR