Pear Orchard? Help!

My husband and I are considering putting an offer on a piece of property (USDA Zone 8, Sunset Zone 7) that has a small pear orchard on part of it -- about 60 trees.

I don't know anything about farming, or even gardening! So you can imagine I'm a little nervous about becoming a gentlewoman farmer, even on a small scale.

The trees look healthy, but should I hire an arborist to inspect them to be sure? Is this something that is done when property changes hands? What kinds of questions should I ask the current owner about the trees? I don't want to be buying something that is going to end up costing lots of money down the road --this is retirement property and we won't have much of an income.

Are pears hard to care for? Can an amateur learn without making horrible mistakes? It is certainly more pears than I can eat (ONE tree would be!), so what does one do with all that fruit? Give it away? Do stores buy from regular people? We'll be off the beaten track, so my setting up a roadside stand probably wouldn't be a good idea. If a tree fails and needs to be replaced, about how much does it cost to take out an established tree? (Can you tell I don't have much confidence???)

Any advice for the newbie? HELP!

Is there a more appropriate thread for this question?

we have pear trees here and they arent any work at all-we dont prune them very much and just spray with the rest of the fruit trees. dormant first and then fungicides all summer.

You can hire anarborist to look at them and see if they have any kinds of sicknesses. Not sure how thats all done either.

You may want to sell them to like a fruit market or grocery store. We sell ours to my hubbies uncle who has a store in alpena michigan!
Maybe a little stand in the yard-we let the kids sell last yr they were happy to make a few bucks!

hope this helps a tad!

I would ask the owners some questions...how THEY care for the trees and such and what they do with all the pears. They might already have places that buy from them that would give you an outlet for sales.

They could also recommend and sprays (and books) that would help you along the way.

I only have 4 pear trees and I consider them "low maintenance".

Selling pears:
In Mississippi people would just load up the back of their pickup truck with their surplus fruit and pull into a parking lot (like at WalMart). People would flock to the truck (I know I did) to get the fresh fruit. Just as long as you aren't competing with the store...