roasting, are about the largest of all, for sometimes they weigh a
mina (about 15.2 ounces) and a half; they are of globular shape,
sometimes conical, and frequently irregular; of a color midway between
pale green and red, redder on one side. They have a pulp with pleasant
juice, astringent, partaking somewhat of acid. They grow in Meissen,
especially at Leisnig and Koldit.
"_Grauchenbirn_, that is, Gray pear, have received their name from
their color, since they are ash-colored and at the same time greenish.
They are small and of globular shape, measuring an inch in breadth as
well as in length; in appearance are in no way different from some
of the wild pears; in taste are soft, mild, sweet, with a pleasantly
astringent quality; they last till after the winter solstice. They
grow in the country about Meissen and Leipzig.
"_Gelbrotebirn_, that is, Yellow-red pear, have an oblong pyramidal
shape, generally reaching a length of three inches, and a width of
two inches. Their color on one side is yellow, on the other saffron
and purple; their pulp is soft, astringent to the taste, pleasant,
slightly acid, and watery. They ripen at the beginning of autumn, and
last till the winter solstice. They grow at Hildesheim in Saxony.
"_Grünlingebirn_, that is, Green pear, are quite large, since
sometimes they exceed three inches in length, two inches in breadth;
they have an oblong pyramidal shape, a green color, a juicy pulp,
sharply astringent to the taste. They ripen at the beginning of
autumn, and last till after the solstice. There is a large crop of
them at Hildesheim.
"_Wasserbirn_, that is, Water pear, rival Green pear in size, they
have a shape big-bellied in the middle and taper to a point at both
ends, sharper and more oblong toward the stem, but shorter and blunter
near the base. Their color on one side is pale, speckled with dots, on
the other reddish, pale on the edges. They have juicy pulp, watery and
rather pleasant to the taste. They become ripe with the Green pear but
do not last so long. They grow at Hildesheim.
"_Kegelbirn_, that is, Cone pear, have the shape of a pine cone, and
from a rather broad base end in a point; their length is three inches,
their width two; their color on one side green, on the other reddish.
Their pulp is juicy, harsh to the taste. Their maturity falls at the
beginning of autumn, from which time they may last till the winter
solstice. They are produced at Hildesheim."
THE PEAR IN ENGLAND
Much as America owes England for fruit, farm, and garden crops, she
is but little indebted to her for pears. Varieties of pears have come
to the New World almost wholly from Belgium and France, not more
than three or four major sorts of English origin being among those
now commonly grown in America. But even though the line of march in
the development of varieties scarcely touches England, all English
speaking pear-growers have received instruction as to culture and have
had knowledge of continental varieties transmitted to them through
English publications. In the history of fruits in England, therefore,
many gleams of light illuminate the path along which the pear has been
brought from the ancients to America.
No doubt the pear was brought to Britain before the Roman conquest.
Tacitus, in the first century, says the climate of Britain is suitable
to the culture of all fruits and vegetables except the grape and the
olive. Pliny writes that the Britains had the cherry before the middle
of the first century, and almost certainly the pear and other fruits
were introduced with it. There was, also, a Saxon name for the pear,
_pirige_, so philologists say, before the fall of the Roman Empire. The
years 43 and 407 mark the beginning and the end of the Romans and of
civilization in Britain for many centuries, and whether or not the pear
was permanently established during this time there are now no means
of ascertaining. The climate and soil of England are congenial to the
pear, however, and no doubt wild or little cultivated trees persisted
until the Norman conquest, the spread of Christianity, and the building
of many monasteries with orchards and gardens as essential adjuncts.
Even in England under the Normans who came in 1066, not much progress
was made in fruit-growing. Tillers of the soil were hard pressed for
the necessities of life and could only with difficulty harvest a
bare sustenance from the land. Besides, monks and nobles preyed on
the starving peasants so that at no time could the farmer be sure of
reaping what he planted. Only these monks and nobles enjoyed luxuries.
But even men who boasted of titles and owned large holdings of land
had little room within fortified walls and on moated islands, which
constant wars made necessary, for fruits; nor had they time from
projects of war and the pleasures of the chase to devote to the art of
agriculture. Fortunately, priors and abbots were well disposed toward
the good things of life, therefore made much of fruits and vegetables,
and with abundance of leisure the monks became the only proficients of
the times in gardening and orcharding. Moreover, they were in constant
correspondence with the continent and could ascertain what culture was
needed to grow perfect fruits. Pear culture had its beginnings in
England, then, in the monasteries established under the Normans.
Pressed for an exact date as to when the pear began to be cultivated
in England, the historians would be troubled to name one. There is a
plan of the monastery of Canterbury made in 1165 which shows an orchard
and a vineyard. History, moreover, relates that armed men collected in
an orchard to take hand in the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170. Men in
those days set small store by written accounts, and history must be
helped out by imagination, and we may imagine that there were pears in
this orchard.
Pears by this time had become common, for there are records of
varieties to a considerable number and in large quantities which could
have been had only from rather extensive orchards. Mrs. Evelyn Cecil[5]
publishes documents from the Record office of England which contain
items of pears bought for Henry III and Edward I at different times in
the thirteenth century, the first date being "probably for the year
1223." The pears appear to be of French origin, and the varieties are
Caloels, Pesse Pesceles, Ruler, and Martyns. In a later memorandum,
1292-93, still other varieties are named as the Regul, Calwel, Dieyer,
Sorell, Chryfall, and Gold Knoper. The pears were sold by the hundred
and were used for desert, though "pears in syrup" and pears for cider
are mentioned. The perusal of these documents, printed in considerable
detail in Mrs. Cecil's admirable book, enables us to fix the beginning
of commercial pear culture in England at as early a date as 1200.
Passing by several other references from records and financial accounts
of monasteries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as too vague to
be of importance, although they make certain that the pear was rather
widely cultivated in England in these two centuries, we come at last
to a noteworthy landmark in pear history in England, the introduction
of the Warden pear, which may be put at the conveniently vague date of
the end of the fourteenth century, 1388 being the first year they are
mentioned.
"Warden" was a name used for centuries to designate a group of pear
varieties having crisp, firm flesh and which were used for culinary
purposes. Their history runs back to the Cistercian Abbey of Warden
in Bedfordshire and to a date earlier than 1388. Warden pears were
favorites for centuries for pies and pastries which every early
cook-book contained recipes for making. In the early English literature
they are considered a distinct fruit as "apples, pears, quinces,
wardens," and even the herbals and early fruit books count them as
distinct. Shakespeare's clown in _A Winter's Tale_ says: "I must have
saffron to colour the Warden pies." The name came to signify any
long-keeping, cooking pear and even yet is so used in parts of England.
The most noteworthy landmark is found in the discussions of pears by
the English herbalists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Turner, the first of these herbalists, in his _Herbal_ of 1551,
mentions the pear but without important details, though we may infer
from what he says that the pear is now a common fruit. Thomas Tusser,
in his _Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie_, published in 1573,
gives a list of fruits to be set or removed in January in which he
includes "pears of all sorts," and then as a separate item includes
"Warden, white and red," showing that "Wardens" were held as distinct
from the pear and that they were prominent in the orchards of the time.
The century ends with John Gerarde's _Herball or Generall Historie
of Plantes_, 1597, in which we are brought to the realization that
the pear is no longer a probationary fruit or even to be considered
a novelty or luxury but a standard food product. Gerarde might well
be quoted in full, but since Parkinson, a few years later, contains a
"fuller discourse," as one of Gerarde's editors says, we take but a few
sentences from Gerarde.
Varieties by this time had become numerous. Gerarde, while he names
but eight, says he knew someone who grew "at the point of three score
sundrie sorts of Peares, and those exceeding good; not doubting but
that if his minde had beene to seeke after multitudes he might have
gotten together the like number of those worse kindes ... to describe
each pear apart, were to send an owle to Athens, or to number those
things without number." Eight sorts are considered worth figuring,
those accorded the honor being: "the Jenneting, Saint James, Royall,
Beugomot, Quince, Bishop, Katherine, and the Winter Peare." Of these
the Katherine is given further prominence by being listed as "known to
all." If one is to judge from number of varieties, the pear at this
time is a more general favorite than the apple, a considerably greater
number of sorts being indicated.
Parkinson's account in his _Paradisus_ of 1629, indeed does prove to be
a "fuller discourse" for he names and describes 65 sorts; but these are
not all for he says: "The variety of peares is as much or more then of
apples, and I thinke it is as hard in this, as before in apples, for
any to be so exquisite, as that hee could number up all the sorts that
are to be had: for wee have in our country so manie, as I shall give
you the names of by and by, and are hitherto come to our knowledge:
but I verily beleeve that there be many, both in our country, and in
others, that we have not yet knowne or heard of; for every yeare almost
wee attaine to the knowledge of some, we knew not of before. Take
therefore, according to the manner before held, the description of one,
with the severall names of the rest, untill a more exact discourse be
had of them, every one apart." Some of the names in Parkinson's list
are group names covering several varieties. Thus, he says, "the Winter
Bon Chretien is of many sorts;" and again, "the Winter Bergomot is of
two or three sorts;" and, "the Winter peare is of many sorts."
Parkinson's descriptions are brief but written with rare clearness, and
the old herbalist seems to have possessed a nicety of observation that
commends him to all who have eyes for the distinguishing characters of
fruits. With Parkinson our history of the pear in England must come to
a close, since later accounts are available to all, and therefore as an
important inventory, and because every word is pertinent, his account
of varieties is republished.
"The Summer bon Chretien is somewhat a long peare, with a greene and
yellow russetish coate, and will have sometimes red sides; it is ripe
at Michaelmas: Some use to dry them as they doe Prunes, and keepe them
all the yeare after. I have not seene or heard any more Summer kindes
hereof then this one, and needeth no wall to nourse it as the other.
"The Winter bon Chretien is of many sorts, some greater, others
lesser, and all good; but the greatest and best is that kinde that
groweth at Syon: All the kinds of this Winter fruit must be planted
against a wall, or else they will both seldome beare, and bring fewer
also to ripenesse, comparable to the wall fruit: The kindes also are
according to their lasting; for some will endure good much longer than
others.
"The Summer Bergomot is an excellent well rellished peare, flattish,
& short, not long like others, of a meane bignesse, and of a darke
yellowish greene colour on the outside.
"The Winter Bergomot is of two or three sorts, being all of them small
fruit, somewhat greener on the outside then the Summer kindes; all
of them very delicate and good in their due time: For some will not
be fit to bee eaten when others are well-nigh spent, every of them
outlasting another by a moneth or more.
"The Diego peare is but a small peare, but an excellent well rellished
fruit, tasting as if Muske had been put among it; many of them growe
together, as it were in clusters.
"The Duetete or double headed peare, so called of the forme, is a
very good peare, not very great, of a russettish browne colour on the
outside.
"The Primating peare is a good moist peare, and early ripe.
"The Geneting peare is a very good early ripe peare.
"The greene Chesill is a delicate mellow peare, even melting as it
were in the mouth of the eater, although greenish on the outside.
"The Catherine peare is knowne to all I thinke to be a yellow red
sided peare, of a full waterish sweete taste, and ripe with the
foremost.
"The King Catherine is greater than the other, and of the same
goodnesse, or rather better.
"The Russet Catherine is a very good middle sized peare.
"The Windsor peare is an excellent good peare, well knowne to most
persons, and of a reasonable greatnesse: it will beare fruit some
times twice in a yeare (and as it is said) three times in some places.
"The Norwich peare is of two sorts, Summer and Winter, both of them
good fruit, each in their season.
"The Worster peare is blackish, a farre better peare to bake (when as
it will be like a Warden, and as good) than to eate rawe; yet so it is
not to be misliked.
"The Muske peare is like unto a Catherine peare for bignesse, colour,
and forme; but farre more excellent in taste, as the very name
importeth.
"The Rosewater peare is a goodly faire peare, and of a delicate taste.
"The Sugar peare is an early peare, very sweete, but waterish.
"The Summer Popperin } both of them are very good dry firme peares,
} somewhat spotted, and brownish on the
"The Winter Popperin } outside.
"The greene Popperin is a winter fruit, of equall goodnesse with the
former.
"The Soveraigne peare, that which I have seene and tasted, and so
termed unto me, was a small brownish yellow peare, but of a most
dainty taste; but some doe take a kind of Bon Chretien, called the
Elizabeth peare, to be the Soveraigne peare; how truely let others
judge.
"The Kings peare is a very good and well tasted peare.
"The peare Royall is a great peare, and of a good rellish.
"The Warwicke peare is a reasonable faire and good peare.
"The Greenfield peare is a very good peare, of a middle size.
"The Lewes peare is a brownish greene peare, ripe about the end of
September, a resonable well rellished fruit, and very moist.
"The Bishop peare is a middle sized peare, of a reasonable good taste,
not very waterish; but this property is oftentimes seene in it, that
before the fruit is gathered, (but more usually those that fall of
themselves, and the rest within a while after they are gathered) will
be rotten at the core, when there will not be a spot or blemish to
bee seene on the outside, or in all the peare, untill you come neare
the core.
"The Wilford peare is a good and a faire peare.
"The Bell peare a very good greene peare.
"The Portingall peare is a great peare, but more goodly in shew than
good indeed.
"The Gratiola peare is a kinde of Bon Chretien, called the Cowcumber
peare, or Spinola's peare.
"The Rowling peare is a good peare, but hard, and not good before it
bee a little rowled or bruised, to make it eate the more mellow.
"The Pimpe peare is as great as the Windsor peare, but rounder, and of
a very good rellish.
"The Turnep peare is a hard winter peare, not so good to eate rawe, as
it is to bake.
"The Arundell peare is most plentifull in Suffolke, and there
commended to be a verie good peare.
"The Berry peare is a Summer peare, reasonable faire and great, and of
so good and wholesome a taste, that few or none take harme by eating
never so many of them.
"The Sand peare is a reasonable good peare, but small.
"The Morley peare is a very good peare, like in forme and colour unto
the Windsor, but somewhat grayer.
"The peare pricke is very like unto the Greenfield peare, being both
faire, great, and good.
"The good Rewell is a reasonable great peare, as good to bake as to
eate rawe, and both wayes it is a good fruit.
"The Hawkes Bill peare is of a middle size, somewhat like unto the
Rowling peare.
"The Petworth peare is a winter peare, and is great, somewhat long,
faire, and good.
"The Slipper peare is a reasonable good peare.
"The Robert peare is a very good peare, plentiful in Suffolke and
Norfolke.
"The Pound peare is a reasonable good peare, both to eate rawe, and to
bake.
"The Ten Pound peare, or the hundred pound peare, the truest and best,
is the best Bon Chretien of Syon, so called, because the grafts cost
the Master so much the fetching by the messengers expences, when he
brought nothing else.
"The Gilloflower peare is a winter peare, faire in shew, but hard, and
not fit to bee eaten rawe, but very good to bake.
"The peare Couteau is neither good one way nor other.
"The Binsce peare is a reasonable good winter peare, of a russetish
colour, and a small fruit: but will abide good a long while.
"The Pucell is a greene peare, of an indifferent good taste.
"The blacke Sorrell is a reasonable great long peare, of a darke red
colour on the outside.
"The red Sorrell is of a redder colour, else like the other.
"The Surrine is no very good peare.
"The Summer Hasting is a little greene peare, of an indifferent good
rellish.
"Peare Gergonell is an early peare, somewhat long, and of a very
pleasant taste.
"The white Genneting is a reasonable good peare, yet not equall to the
other.
"The Sweater is somewhat like the Windsor for colour and bignesse, but
nothing neare of so good a taste.
"The bloud red peare is of a darke red colour on the outside, but
piercing very little into the inner pulpe.
"The Hony peare is a long greene Summer peare.
"The Winter peare is of many sorts, but this is onely so called, to
bee distinguished from all other Winter peares, which have severall
names given them, and is a very good peare.
"The Warden or Luke Wards peare of two sorts, both white and red, both
great and small.
"The Spanish Warden is greater than either of both the former, and
better also.
"The peare of Jerusalem, or the stript peare, whose barke while it is
young, is as plainly seene to be stript with greene, red, and yellow,
as the fruit it selfe is also, and is of a very good taste: being
baked also, it is as red as the best Warden, whereof Master William
Ward of Essex hath assured mee, who is the chiefe keeper of the Kings
Granary at Whitehall.
"Hereof likewise there is a wilde kinde no bigger than ones thumbe,
and striped in the like manner, but much more.
"The Choke peares, and other wilde peares, both great and small, as
they are not to furnish our Orchard, but the Woods, Forrests, Fields,
and Hedges, so wee leave them to their naturall places, and to them
that keep them, and make good use of them."
Three hundred years have played havoc with the pears Parkinson knew.
None are known in America, and unless the Pound of Parkinson is the
Pound of today, not a half dozen are found in current lists in England.
Parkinson's Catherine, Winter Bon Chretien, Windsor, Bergamot, possibly
the Pound, and his Gergonell, the Jargonelle of today, are about all
the names that would be recognized by modern pear-growers. The pear
shows far fewer familiar names at the end of three centuries than
Parkinson lists of apples, plums, cherries, or even the peach in
Europe. Dropping old varieties can only be interpreted as improvement
in the pear. The pear, it seems certain, has been more profoundly
changed for the better through the touch of man's hand than the other
fruits named since Parkinson wrote. For this, pomology has the Belgians
to thank.
Pear culture seems to have reached its height, if it be judged by
its literature and by the number of varieties cultivated, early in
the nineteenth century. The Belgians' passion for pears was no doubt
the chief stimulus, for the Belgian breeders spread their offerings
with generous hand throughout England. In 1826, the catalog of the
Horticultural Society of London listed 622 pears. Pomology in England
was then, and is now as compared with America, an art of the leisure
classes. This has been an advantage and a disadvantage to the pear
in England. The advantage is that when fruit is grown for pleasure
many varieties are grown to add novelty to luxury so that the fruit
is thereby more rapidly improved and its culture brought to greater
perfection. The disadvantage is that those who grow fruit for market
find a poorer market for their wares since those who should be their
best customers supply their own wants. For the reason, therefore, that
the English take delight in growing their own fruit, pear-growing is
not the great commercial enterprise that it is in America.
Pear-growing in England differs from that of America in another
respect. The pear-tree in England is built as much as planted. In many
plantations each tree has a precise architectural form. The plants
are trained into fans, cordons, espaliers and u-forms on walls; or as
pyramids, globes, or vases in the open; sometimes in fantastic shapes
to suit the fancy of the grower; and now and then as a hedge or border.
The undisciplined standards of America are hardly known, though what
the English call a standard seems to be increasing. This difference in
training is due in part to the necessity of meeting different climatic
conditions, and in part to greater devotion on the Englishman's part
to the art of gardening--the use of the shears, the knife, and the
billhook give the gardener greater scope. The pear-tree in England is
often decorative as well as useful.
THE PEAR IN AMERICA
The pear is a popular fruit in America, but its culture as a commercial
product is limited to a few favored localities. From the earliest
records of fruit-growing in America the pear has been grown less than
the apple and peach and scarcely more than the cherry and plum.
In Europe, it is a question if the pear is not more commonly grown
than the apple, and is much more common than the plum and the peach,
the last-named fruit being grown out of doors for most part only in
southern Europe. Pears are more varied in size, shape, texture, and
flavor of flesh than others of the hardy tree-fruits, and in length
of season exceed all others excepting the apple. Varieties of pears,
possibly, have the charm of individuality more marked than varieties
of its orchard associates. The trees, where environment permits their
culture, are not difficult to grow, and attain greater size, produce
larger crops, and live longer than any other hardy fruit. Why, then,
is the pear not more popular in America? Conditions of climate,
pests, season of ripening, taste, and trade prevent the expansion of
pear-culture on this side of the Atlantic.
The climate in most parts of America is uncongenial to the pear. Pears
from the European stock, to which most varieties grown in America
belong, thrive only in relatively equable climates, and do not endure
well the sudden and extreme variations in climate to which most parts
of this continent are subject. Extremes of heat or cold, wetness or
dryness, are fatal to the pear. In North America, therefore, commercial
pear-culture is confined to favored localities on the Atlantic
seaboard, about the Great Lakes, and on the Pacific slope. Even in
these favored regions, pears sent to market come largely from the
plantations of specialists. On the Atlantic seaboard, European pears
are products of commerce only in southern New England and New York,
westward through Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie, and in the southern
lake regions of Michigan. Away from these bodies of water to the
Pacific, varieties of European pears refuse to grow except with the
utmost care in culture and selection of sites. On the Pacific slope,
in the hardy-fruit regions, the pear reaches its highest development
in the New World. Oriental pears, or varieties having Oriental blood,
as Kieffer and Le Conte, are grown in every part of America where the
culture of hardy fruits is attempted.
Liability to loss by pests is a great detriment to the popularity
of the pear in America. The insect pests of pears are numerous.
Codling-moths attack the fruit wherever the pear is grown in America,
and can be kept down only by expensive arsenical sprays. The psylla,
while irregular in its outbreaks, is most damaging and hard to control
when it appears. These are the chief insect enemies, but a dozen
others take more or less toll from tree or fruit. Foliage and fruit
are attacked by several parasitic fungi, of which pear-scab is most
troublesome, requiring treatment wherever the pear is grown, and under
favorable conditions for the fungus preventives often fail to give
the fruits a fair cheek. But of all diseases pear-blight is the most
serious, its effects and virulency being such as to give it the popular
name "fire-blight." It is caused by a bacterium which cannot be checked
by sprays, and must be combatted with expensive and unsatisfactory
sanitary measures, such as cutting out branches and trees, so drastic
as to make impossible commercial cultivation of pears in regions where
climate favors the disease.
Pears compete with apples more than with any other fruit, but are at a
disadvantage with this near relative in having a much shorter period
during which the fruits can be used. Varieties of the two fruits begin
to ripen at nearly the same season, but there are few sorts of pears in
season later than December, and these are of poorer quality than the
fall varieties; while apples are abundant and of prime quality four or
five months later, and may be kept until early apples usher in a new
season. During most of its season, also, the pear must compete with
the perishable summer and autumn plums and peaches, so luscious and
delectable that the firmer and less highly flavored pome-fruits suffer
in comparison.
Still another reason why the pear is not a popular dessert fruit in
America is that, of all fruits, the varieties of this one are the most
variable in quality of the product. Sorts that should produce pears of
highest quality bear fruits poor or indifferent in texture and flavor
in unfavorable seasons, on unsuitable soils, or under neglect. Good
pears can be grown only when environmental factors are favorable and
under the most generous treatment. Extensive cultivation of the Kieffer
and its kin for canning has hindered the cultivation of pears for the
fruit-stand and to grace the table as a dessert fruit. So common has
the Kieffer become that many of the present generation are hardly aware
that the pear may be a delicious fruit to eat out of hand.
Lastly, the pear falls short of the apple as a commercial product
because it is not nearly so satisfactory to handle as a commercial
crop. Pears are more difficult to pack, and do not stand transportation
as well as apples. They cannot be kept in cold storage nearly as
long, and decay more quickly when brought into warmer temperatures.
The demand for evaporated pears is slight in comparison with that for
evaporated apples, and although perry, the expressed juice of pears, is
quite as refreshing as cider, this by-product of the fruit is little
known in America. As a prepared product, the pear surpasses the apple
only as a canned fruit. Failing in comparison with the apple, as a
commercial product, pears are largely left to fruit connoisseurs,
and with these a generation ago the pear was the fruit of fruits,
many splendid collections of it having been made in regions where
pears could be grown. With the expansion of commercial fruit-growing,
collections of pears, and with them many choice varieties, have gone
out of cultivation--more is the pity--and pear-growing has expanded
least of all the fruit industries in the United States.
With this brief discussion of the present status of pear-culture in
this country, we can proceed to trace the history of the pear with
more exactness by reason of knowing its limitations under American
conditions.
The peach is the only hardy fruit that belongs to the heroic age of
Spanish discovery in the New World. Pears, apples, plums, and cherries
came to the new continent with the French and English. The early
records of fruit-growing in America show that the pear came among
the first luxuries of the land in the French and English settlements
from Canada to Florida. Pioneers in any country begin at once to
cultivate the soil for the means of sustenance. Naturally, cereals and
easily-grown nutritious vegetables receive attention first as giving
more immediate harvests and more sustaining fare to supplement game
and fish. Agriculture and gardening usually precede orcharding, and
this was the case in early settlements in America, but not long. The
first generation born in colonial America knew and used all of the
hardy fruits from Europe; as many records attest, and of which there is
confirmatory proof with the pear in many ancient pear-trees of great
size near the old settlements, some of which were planted by the first
settlers from Europe. Of pears, many notable trees planted by the
hands of the first English and French who crossed the seas to settle
the new country were conspicuous monuments in various parts of America
in the memory of men still living, if, indeed, some of the old trees
themselves are not still standing.
Of these ancient pear-trees, New England furnishes the most notable
monuments to mark the introduction of this fruit in the New World.
Fortunately, their histories have been preserved in several
horticultural annals, and of these accounts the fullest and best is by
Robert Manning, Jr., in the Proceedings of the American Pomological
Society for 1875, pages 100 to 103. Manning's notes throw so much light
on the early history of the pear in New England, as well as upon the
varieties then grown, that they are published in full.
"The _Endicott_ Pear. The tradition in the Endicott family is that
this tree was planted in 1630. It is said that the trees constituting
the original orchard came over from England in June, in the Arabella
with Governor Winthrop, or in one of the other ships of the fleet
arriving at Salem in June. The farm on which the tree now stands, not
having been granted to Endicott until 1632, it is not probable that
the trees were planted there before that time, but they might have
been at first set in the Governor's town garden at Salem, where the
Rev. Francis Higginson, on his arrival in the summer of 1629, found
a vine-yard already planted. The tradition further states that the
Governor said that the tree was of the same date with a sun-dial which
formerly stood near it. This dial, after having passed through the
hands of the Rev. William Bentley, D.D., is now in the Essex Institute
in Salem, and bears the date 1630, with the Governor's initials.
The farm, which early bore the name of 'Orchard,' was occupied and
cultivated by the Governor and his descendants for 184 years, from
1632 to 1816, and was held solely by the original grant until 1828,
a period of 196 years. Under these circumstances the history of the
tree is more likely to have been handed down correctly than if the
estate had changed hands. It is certain that Governor Endicott was
early engaged in propagating trees, for in a letter to John Winthrop
in 1644, he speaks of having at least 500 trees burnt by his children
setting fire near them, and, in a letter to John Winthrop, Jr., a year
later, of being engaged to pay for 1500 trees.
"As early as 1763 the tree was very old and decayed. It was very
much injured in the gale of 1804. In the gale of 1815 it was so much
shattered that its recovery was considered doubtful. It was injured
again in a gale about 1843. For the last fifty years it has been
protected by a fence around it. In 1837 it was eighty feet high by
measurement and fifty-five feet in the circumference of its branches,
and does not probably vary much from these dimensions now. Two suckers
have sprung up on opposite sides of the tree, which bear the same
fruit as the original, proving it to be ungrafted. It stands near the
site of the first mansion of the Governor, on a slope where it is
somewhat sheltered from the north and north-west winds. The soil is a
light loam, with a substratum of clay. Grafts taken from the old tree
grow very vigorously. From a pomological point of view, the fruit is
of no value. It is hardly of medium size, roundish, green, with more
or less rough russet, very coarse, and soon decays.
"It may be of interest to state that the farm on which the old tree
stands is again in the Endicott name, having lately been purchased by
a descendant of the Governor. The tree stands in the town of Danvers
originally a part of Salem.
"For further facts concerning this tree, see the _Transactions of the
Massachusetts Horticultural Society_ for 1837, and also an article
by Charles M. Endicott, a descendant of the Governor, in Hovey's
_Magazine of Horticulture_, vol. xix, p. 254, June, 1853, from which
the above account has been mainly derived. Each of these articles is
illustrated with a cut of the pear.
"The _Orange_ Pear. This tree is owned by Capt. Charles H. Allen,
and stands in his yard on Hardy street, Salem. The Rev. Dr. Bentley,
who died about 1820, investigated the history of this tree and found
it to be then 180 years old, which would make it now 235 years old.
The trunk is hollow, nine feet five inches in circumference in the
smallest part near the ground; just below the limbs it is several
inches more. The tree is more than forty feet high, and the limbs are
supported by shores. It was grafted in the limbs, as a branch fifteen
or twenty years old, shooting out several feet higher than a man's
head, produces 'Button' pears, and a large limb, part of which was
'Button' which grew out still higher up, was blown off several years
ago. In the very favorable pear season of 1862 it bore thirteen and a
half bushels of pears. It bears in alternate years, having produced
eight and a half bushels in 1873. The brittleness of the limbs of
old pear trees is well known, yet Capt. Allen, with a care worthy of
imitation, gathers every pear, excepting about a dozen specimens, by
hand.
"This variety was, until the introduction of the modern kinds, highly
esteemed. It is above medium size, averaging fifty-six pears to the
peck, globular obtuse pyriform, covered with thin russet, juicy
when gathered early and ripened in the house; of pleasant flavor
but rather deficient in this respect. It is ripe about the middle
of September. It was considered by my father a native, and was
called by him the _American Orange_, and after examination of the
descriptions and plates, I cannot think it the same as the _Orange
Rouge_ or _Orange d'Automne_ of Duhamel, Decaisne, and Leroy. The
Hon. Paul Dudley, Esq., of Roxbury, in some 'Observations on some of
the Plants in New England with remarkable Instances of the Power of
Vegetation,' communicated to the Royal Society of London (I quote from
the 'Philosophical Transactions,' abridged, London, 1734, Vol. VI,
Part II, p. 341), says: 'An _Orange_ Pear Tree grows the largest, and
yields the fairest fruit. I know one of them near forty Foot high,
that measures six Foot and six Inches in Girt, a Yard from the Ground,
and has borne thirty Bushels at a Time, and this Year I measured an
_Orange_ pear, that grew in my own Orchard, of eleven Inches round the
Bulge.'
"If this is, as believed, of native origin, it is the oldest American
fruit in cultivation, unless we except the _Apple_ pear, which is
probably of about the same date. This is small, oblate, of pale yellow
color, ripening in August. It is quite distinct from the _Poire Pomme
d'Hiver_, of Leroy, and I think also from the _Poire Pomme d'Été_, of
the same author. I had supposed the variety to be extinct, but last
year discovered in a garden in Salem the remnant of an old tree with
a trunk four feet in diameter, and still producing fruit.
"The _Orange_ pear tree which produced the specimens exhibited, was
inherited by the present owner from his father, to whom it came from
his wife. It had descended to her almost from the first settlement of
Salem, but partly in the female line, so that the name of the owner
sometimes changed. The house on the estate was built in 1812, having
replaced one which was pulled down after standing 150 years. Within
the period of a generation there were standing in Salem several trees
of the _Orange_ pear, some of which were reputed to be more than two
centuries old, and all of which were undoubtedly very ancient, but
they are all now gone except Capt. Allen's, the last one having been
blown down in the winter of 1874-75. I have heard a tradition that
this last mentioned tree was one of several imported from England and
planted in gardens at intervals on the northerly side of the principal
street in Salem. This tradition may or may not be true with regard to
these trees, but it would not apply to the Allen tree, for the height
at which it was grafted forbids the idea that it was imported from
England in a grafted state.
"The _Anthony Thacher_ Pear. This tree stands near the meadows about a
fourth of a mile north of the Universalist church in Yarmouth, where
Anthony Thacher's house formerly stood. It is a large, rotten-hearted
old tree. It has lost nearly all its old branches, but has thrown out
many new ones. The late Judge George Thacher, who, if now living,
would be 120 years old, inquired into its history, and made the matter
certain that it was planted by Anthony Thacher about 1640. It is
believed to be a grafted tree, as it contracts two or three inches at
about a foot and a half from the ground. It is taken good care of and
will probably last many years. It is now owned by the heirs of James
C. Hallet. There are other trees of the same kind in the vicinity, but
their age cannot be proved.
"The fruit is of medium size, ovate pyriform, green, changing to
yellow at maturity, of tolerable quality, ripening early in September.
For the specimens exhibited, as well as the facts above noted, I am
indebted to the kindness of Amos Otis, Esq., of Yarmouth Port, who had
made the local history of Cape Cod his study for the last fifty years,
and who died much lamented on the 19th of October last.
"Anthony Thacher came from England in 1635, and after residing in
Marshfield, removed to Yarmouth in 1639, being one of the three
original grantees of land in that town. The late Dr. James Thacher,
of Plymouth, author of the 'American Orchardist' (published in 1821),
was a descendant of Anthony in the sixth generation. Anthony Thacher
accompanied his cousin, Rev. John Avery, in that disastrous voyage
of which Whittier has perpetuated the memory in his ballad, 'The
Swan Song of Parson Avery.' Anthony Thacher got ashore on Thacher's
Island, the headland of Cape Ann, and gave name to the island.
(See Whittier's 'Home Ballads' and Young's 'Chronicles of the First
Planters of Massachusetts,' p. 485.)
"I endeavored, but without success, to obtain fruit from the pear tree
planted at least as early as 1650, by Governor Prence, or Prince,
at Eastham, on Cape Cod, and now owned by Capt. Ezekiel Doane. It
is known as the _Fall_ pear. It is about the size of a hen's egg,
tapering towards both ends, green, nearly covered with thin russet,
of inferior quality, but not as coarse as the _Endicott_. In 1836 it
was a flourishing, lofty tree, producing an average of fifteen bushels
of fruit. It consisted of two stems, branching from the ground, the
larger of which was blown down in the great storm of April, 1851.
The portion now remaining is thirty-five feet high. It is a natural
tree and has not failed of bearing for twenty years. It stands in low
ground.
"The _Pickering_ or _Warden_ Pear. This tree was grafted on the 19th
of April, 1775, the day the battle of Lexington was fought, and
must have been at that time a small tree. It is called by the owner
the _Uvedale Warden_ or _Pickering_ pear, which are synonyms of the
_Uvedale's St. Germain_ or _Pound_, but it is entirely distinct from
that variety, being much smaller as well as otherwise different. It
resembles, and very probably is identical with, a variety which I have
known as the _English Warden_, but which I do not find described in
any pomological work, and have not seen for years. It is of medium
size, turbinate, light yellow, with a dull brownish cheek, in use in
winter, for cooking only. Paul Dudley says, in the paper above quoted,
'I have a _Warden_ Pear Tree that measures five Foot six Inches round.'
"The Pickering tree contracts suddenly at about a foot from the
ground, where it must have been grafted. It shows no sign of being
grafted elsewhere. Below the point of grafting, it is full two feet
in diameter and is about twenty-five feet high. It stands in a low,
moist place. The top was much injured by the great gale of September,
1869, losing several large limbs, but the tree is on the whole in good
preservation. In the same garden is a tree probably as old or older,
believed to be a _Messire Jean_.
"The estate, now much circumscribed from its original extent, on which
this tree stands, has been in the same family since 1642, having been
purchased in that year by John Pickering, who came from England in
1637, and built the house, now standing and occupied by the owner,
in 1651. It is on Broad street, Salem. The tree was grafted by John
Pickering, of the fifth generation.
"The Hon. Timothy Pickering, eminent for his incorruptible integrity
and immovable firmness, who successively held the offices of
Adjutant-general and Quartermaster-general in the Revolutionary
army, and of Postmaster-general, Secretary of War, and Secretary
of State in the Cabinet of President Washington, and continued to
hold the last named office under President Adams, was a brother of
John. At the breaking out of the Revolution he was Colonel of the
Essex regiment, and on the day when this tree was grafted by John
Pickering, who was an invalid, his more vigorous brother mustered
his regiment and marched to intercept the retreating British troops.
Timothy Pickering was also interested in agriculture, having been
Secretary of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture,
the oldest agricultural society in the United States, and after his
return to Massachusetts, was the first President of the Essex County
Agricultural Society. The estate on which the old pear tree stands was
devised by John Pickering, who died unmarried, to his nephew John, son
of Timothy, the most eminent American philologist of his time. On his
death, it descended to his son John, the present owner, to whom I am
indebted for the facts here stated, as well as for the specimens of
fruit exhibited at Chicago last September."
Out of an embarrassing number of references in regard to the early
introduction of the pear in New England one may choose the following:
Francis Higginson, writing in 1629, notes that pears are under
cultivation in New England.[6] In the same year, a memorandum of
the Massachusetts Company shows that seeds of pears, with those of
other fruits were sent to the colony.[7] Trees from these seeds grew
amazingly fast in the virgin soils of the colony, for John Josselyn,
who made voyages to New England in 1638 and 1639, writing in his
_New England Rarities Discovered_, notes that "fruit trees prosper
abundantly" enumerating, among others, those of the pear.[8] Josselyn
further says "the Kernels sown or Succors planted produce as fair and
good fruit, without grafting, as the trees from which they were taken,"
and that "the Countrey is replenished with fair and large Orchards."
As early as 1641 a nursery had been started in Massachusetts and no
doubt was selling pear-trees. These probably came from seeds, for trees
were not imported until in the next century. Varieties were few then as
for many years later. In 1726, Paul Dudley, one of the Chief Justices
of Massachusetts, in a paper in the _Philosophical Transactions_,
says, "Our apples are without doubt as good as those of England, and
much fairer to look to, and so are the pears, but we have not got all
the sorts." In another paragraph, Justice Dudley gives the following
account of several varieties of pears in these first orchards in New
England.
He says:[9] "An _Orange_ Pear Tree grows the largest and yields the
fairest Fruit. I know one of them near forty Foot high, that measures
six Foot and six Inches in Girt, a Yard from the Ground, and has borne
thirty Bushels at a Time: and this year I measured an _Orange_ Pear,
that grew in my own Orchard, of eleven Inches round the Bulge. I have a
Warden Pear Tree, that measures five Foot six Inches round. One of my
Neighbors has a _Bergamot_ Pear Tree that was brought from _England_ in
a Box, about the Year 1643, that now measures six Foot about, and has
borne twenty-two Bushels of fine Pears in one Year. About twenty years
since, the Owner took a Cyon, and grafted it upon a common Hedge Pear;
but the Fruit does not prove altogether so good, and the Rind or Skin,
is thicker than that of the Original."
Thus, early in the history of Massachusetts, the pear was largely
planted and became a prominent fruit. These early plantations grew
so well that no doubt they inspired the horticulturists of the first
half of the nineteenth century, of which the names of Dearborn, Hovey,
Kenrick, the two Mannings, and Wilder are notable in the history of
the pear in this country, to undertake the popularization of this
fruit by extensive culture, by breeding new varieties, and by the
introduction of the best pears from Europe. Their work, as we shall see
later, gave pear-growing its first great impetus in America. Until the
middle of the last century, the pear industry in America centered in
Massachusetts; and most of the new varieties which originated in this
country and nearly all of the introductions from abroad came from that
state.
The pear was not neglected in the other New England states as the
horticultural records of all attest, but its history in the several
states is so similar in time and events that the account of its early
culture in Massachusetts suffices for the whole region. It must,
however, be noted that the pear was introduced in Maine at a very early
date, probably by the French. In an orchard on the east bank of the
Sheepscot, below Wiscasset Bay, a venerable pear-tree stood until early
in the nineteenth century of such girt and height that it was supposed
to be more than 200 years old. Of the planting of this orchard there
are no records nor traditions. The most reasonable supposition was that
the trees had been planted there by the French in one of the several
attempts of France to colonize the coast of Maine.[10]
This introduction of the French in the history of the pear in the New
World, brings us to a discussion of the part they took in bringing this
fruit to America. The debt to France for early horticulture in America
rests largely on tradition, but in the case of the pear, there are
such substantial proofs of it in ancient pear-trees of enormous size
found on the sites of old French settlements, that though there are
no written records, and even the people and their habitations have
disappeared, it is certain that the seeds from which these venerable
trees sprang were planted by early French explorers or missionaries.
The first plantings of pears made by the French were in Canada. History
and tradition, substantiated by ancient trees, make certain that this
fruit was planted by the first French settlers in Nova Scotia, Cape
Breton, Prince Edward Island, in favored situations bordering on the
St. Lawrence, and on the islands in this river, notably the Island of
Montreal. Later plantations of fruit were set in the Niagara region and
along the Detroit river. No new varieties seem to have come from these
early plantings in Canada, but they demonstrated that pear-growing was
possible.
The history of the pear in America cannot be written without making
note of the magnificent specimens of this fruit standing until recent
years--a few may still be found--about the old French settlements in
Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. These are offspring of seeds brought
from France. A century ago the French _habitants_ in Detroit had a
tradition as to the manner in which these pears were introduced. The
legend ran that an emigrant from France brought three pear seeds in his
vest pocket, which, planted on the banks of the Detroit river, became
the parents through suckers and seeds of the gigantic old pear-trees
that have long been such striking landmarks of the towns and farms on
the Detroit river. No doubt these trees are the remains of orchards
in which there were apples, and possibly some plums and cherries, of
which the shorter-lived trees long since disappeared, while the pears,
flourishing in a green old age, are the sole remaining relics of the
old French settlements of this region. The writer herewith puts on
record another account of these truly remarkable pears as he saw them
in 1899.
All of these ancient French pears are of the same type, but the fruits
vary slightly, indicating that the trees were grown from seeds,
although some may have come from sprouts since many of the trees
throw out sprouts abundantly. The pears are of medium size, usually
turbinate, and lemon-yellow is the predominating color. The ripening
season runs from late summer to early winter. The flesh is melting,
juicy, usually mildly sweet, spicy, not high in quality for dessert
but excellent for all culinary purposes. But the most remarkable
characters of these French pears are the great size of the trees and
their vigor, healthfulness, productiveness, and longevity. The trees
have the majestic port of a century-old elm or oak. They attain a
height of eighty feet; a girt of eight or ten feet is not uncommon,
while one monarch measured by the writer fell a few inches short of
eleven feet in circumference three feet from the ground. The leaves are
small but abundant, and are of the luxuriant green color that betokens
great vigor. The trees have attained immunity to blight, but the fruits
are inviting prey to codling-moth when that insect is rife. In these
rich river-bottom lands the trees almost annually load themselves with
fruit, a crop of from forty to fifty bushels on one tree not being
uncommon. No one knows the age of most of these ancient lichen-covered
giants, although one which stood until a few years ago was known to
have been planted within the pickets of the palisaded fortress of
Detroit in 1705.
A generation or two ago, these French pears were very common about
the French settlements of Michigan and Canada in this region but they
have been disappearing fast, until it is doubtful if any of those
set by French _habitants_ can be found now. The pears possessed no
commercial value, and were replaced by named varieties better known
by fruit-growers and nurserymen. It is doubtful if the trees of the
newcomers will ever attain the age, size, vigor, and productiveness of
these oldtimers of the French, characters which make them noteworthy in
the history of the pear in America.
Pear-trees of enormous size survive on other sites of old French
settlements in the United States to show what notable horticulturists
the early missionaries of this people were, who, we are many times told
in the early records, usually surrounded their missions and homes with
trees of the apple, peach, pear, and cherry. Pear-trees very like those
found about the French settlements in Canada and Michigan still grow
in the rich intervale lands of the Wabash and Mississippi in Indiana,
Illinois, and Missouri. Vincennes, Indiana, was settled by the French
in 1702; Kaskaskia and Cahokia, Illinois, about 1685; St. Louis,
Missouri, in 1764. These may be set down as approximate dates in which
horticulture began in these inland regions. When the English conquered
these settlements they found giant pear-trees which persisted well into
the last century, the second generation of which were scattered far
and wide in the river settlements of this region. Tradition says that
a Monsieur Girardin, a native of France, planted a pear orchard from
seeds he brought with him at Cahokia about 1780, from which came the
Prairie du Pont pear, a small, roundish, lemon-colored fruit similar
to the French pears of Detroit, borne on an immense blight-proof
tree. No doubt the variety could still be found in this part of the
Mississippi valley. One wishes that the American-born descendants and
the conquerers of these early settlers from Normandy were as energetic
in forwarding horticulture as the first settlers. After the invasion
of the English and later the Americans, there is little evidence of
progress in horticulture in this region, until the early years of the
nineteenth century.
Another famous pear-tree of the Middle West is worthy of notice as an
evidence of early interest in horticulture. This tree, known as the
Ockletree pear, from the name of its owner, has acquired fame as the
largest pear-tree of which there is record. The tree was a seedling
brought from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1804, and was planted in an
orchard at Vincennes, Indiana. It bore a number of record-breaking
crops, the largest of which was 140 bushels of pears borne in 1837.
In 1855, the trunk measured ten and one-half feet in circumference at
the smallest place below the limbs; the top was estimated to have a
spread of 75 feet. The tree gained its great port and productiveness
from spread of branch rather than height, which was estimated to be
only 65 feet. The variety was unknown, but the fruit was said to be
somewhat inferior in quality. This monarch of its species was struck by
a tornado in 1867 which stripped off its branches and caused the death
of the tree a few years later.
Another living monument marked the beginnings of pear-culture in
America until 1866, when the trunk, little more than a shell, was
broken down by a dray, having furnished shade and shelter in a New
York garden for 220 years. This garden was laid out by the redoubtable
Peter Stuyvesant who took the reins of government in New Amsterdam
in 1647, at which time this pear-tree was planted. The pear was a
Summer Bon Chrétien, said to have been imported from Holland in a tub.
Stuyvesant's garden, kept in a high state of cultivation by forty or
fifty negro slaves, was called the "Bouwery," now the Bowery, and the
pear-tree in it stood at what is now the corner of Third Avenue and
Thirteenth Street. No doubt other pears were imported from Holland at
the same time, and from these and seeds and sprouts, this fruit was
started in the Dutch settlements up and down the Hudson, where the pear
even to this day is a favorite fruit, finding here a more congenial
soil and climate than in any other part of America.
Soon after Governor Stuyvesant planted his bowery of fruits, flowers,
and vegetables, the French laid out orchards in the vicinity of New
York City. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, many
Huguenots fled to America. In 1689, some of these French _emigrés_
settled at New Rochelle, New York, and on Long Island. The trees grown
by the Huguenots were usually grafted, the parent plants having been
brought from France. No doubt, it was from these importations that
White Doyenné, Brown Beurré, St. Germain, Virgouleuse, and many other
old French sorts that seem to have been in America from time immemorial
came.
However, the pear, in common with other fruits, was more largely grown
from seeds in these pioneer days than from buds or grafts. Fruits
were known and grown as species and not as varieties almost wholly in
America until the nineteenth century. The sale of budded or grafted
trees began in New York, so far as records show, with the establishment
of a nursery at Flushing, Long Island, in 1730, by Robert Prince.
This nursery afterwards became the famous Linnaean Botanic Garden.
At what date Prince began to offer grafted pears for sale cannot now
be ascertained, but advertisements appearing in 1767, 1771, and 1790
offer named varieties at these dates. The following is a list of pears
offered by the Princes in 1771:[11]
Bergamot Russelet
Catharine Early sugar
Vergalieu Baurre vert
July Winter baurre
Monsier Jean Baurre de roy
Trom valette Green chissel
French primative Swan's egg
Winter bon cretan Colmar
Easter bergamot Cressan
Amber Spanish bon cretan
Chaumontelle Large bell
Citron de camis La Chassaire
Summer bergamot Hampden's bergamot
Autumn bergamot Doctor Uvedale's St. Germain
Amozelle Large winter, weighs near two pounds
Lent St. Germain Pear wardens
Brocaus bergamot Empress
Winter bergamot Large summer baking
Jargonelle The black pear of Worcester or Parkinson's
warden
Roussilon The skinless
Cuissemadam Green catharine
Coincident with the establishment of nurseries selling named varieties
of pears another event of prime importance to pear-growers occurred.
Pear-blight became epidemic in the orchards along the Hudson, and while
it must have been noticed before, its ravages at this time brought
it prominently to the attention of pear-growers. The disease seems
to have been first mentioned by William Denning who described it in
the _Transactions of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture_
for 1794 (pt. 2, p. 219) in an article on the decay of apple-trees.
Denning says that he first saw the malady in orchards on the highlands
of the Hudson in 1780 attacking apples, pears, and quinces. He gives a
good description of the disease, but says it is caused by a borer in
the trunk which he found after much labor. From Denning's discovery
until Burrill a hundred years later, in 1882, discovered a cause of
the disease and suggested a preventive, every treatise on the pear
speculates on the cause and cure of pear-blight, a disease which has
been and is the terror and despair of growers of this fruit.
Philadelphia was another center of pear-growing in the early
settlements of the country. The Quakers, settling in Pennsylvania in
1682, planted all of the hardy fruits; which were soon, as we are
several times told, a great asset to the colony. No results worthy of
note seem to have come from these early plantings until nearly a half
century later when John Bartram[12] founded, in 1728, what became a
famous botanic garden. The Bartram Botanic Garden became almost at
once the clearing house for native and foreign fruits and plants, and
to it came several varieties of pears for distribution throughout the
colonies. Here, the first variety of the pear to originate in America
of which we have definite record, came into existence. This was the
Petre pear raised by Bartram, from seeds sent him from England by Lady
Petre. The seed was planted in 1735 near the stone house which Bartram
built with his own hands. The tree still stands, somewhat stricken with
its two centuries, but withal a noble specimen seemingly capable of
breasting the blows of age for many years to come.
The pear industry of the eastern United States is confined to the
regions in which the history of this fruit has been traced, and most
if not all of the varieties that originated in this country until
the middle of the nineteenth century came from the importations to
these French, Dutch, and English settlements. There is little profit,
therefore, in attempting to trace further the history of pear-culture
on the Atlantic seaboard in colonial times. Pears were grown in the
states south of Pennsylvania, for many references are found in the
colonial records of the southern states, but they bring out no new
facts to illuminate the history of this fruit in America. The Quakers
and Swedes grew pears in the regions watered by the Delaware, and the
English in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina all planted pears
with the other hardy fruits only to find that they so quickly succumbed
to unfavorable climate and the blight as to be unprofitable. The
Bergamy and Warden, in particular, are mentioned as varieties of this
fruit grown in the colonial period of the southern colonies.
Perhaps one, at least, of these lesser centers of pear-growing somewhat
to the south of the pear regions in which there are now commercial
plantations should receive notice. In 1794, William Coxe,[13]
Burlington, New Jersey, began planting experimental orchards. Coxe was
acquainted with the leading pomologists of Europe and his own country,
and collected the best varieties of tree-fruits to be found in the
United States, England, and France. In 1817, he published his _View
of the Cultivation of Fruit Trees, and the Management of Orchards
and Cider, etc._, the first American book on pomology. This pioneer
pomologist described 65 varieties of pears, most of which he had grown
at one time or another on his own place, and names 21 other sorts that
were grown in his and neighboring states. Coxe seems to have been the
first nurseryman to import new varieties from the Old World. To Coxe,
more than to any other one man, the regions adjacent to the Delaware
are indebted for the early development of fruit-growing both for
pleasure and profit, and the whole country is indebted to him for the
introduction of many fine fruits.
A new phase in the history of the pear began soon after the
Revolutionary war. Until this time, and until well into the next
century, tree-fruits were nearly all seedlings. The pears of the
country until as late as 1830 were for most part seedlings, the
fruits varying greatly in size, shape, color, and flavor. According
to the accounts of the times, the product was so hard of flesh and so
astringent in flavor as to be fit only for cooking and perry. Indeed,
the great object in growing apples, pears, and peaches was the making
of cider, perry, and peach-brandy. Good eating pears were few indeed.
But beginning in a small way with Coxe in New Jersey, as noted, a
little later with William Kenrick, Newton, Massachusetts, and still
later with Robert Manning, Salem, Massachusetts, the importation of
European varieties of fruits became an important part of the nursery
business. The importation of pears became an obsession with Manning,
his nursery alone importing several hundred varieties. Manning's work
must have a more extended notice.
In 1823, Robert Manning established a pomological garden at Salem,
Massachusetts, to collect and test as many varieties of fruits as he
could obtain, native and foreign, with the intention of propagating and
distributing those which proved most worthy. In furthering this great
project he entered into correspondence with the leading pomologists
of Europe, and from them secured trees and cions, which, with native
sorts, brought his collection up to 2000 varieties of fruits at the
time of his death in 1842. More than half of the varieties planted by
Manning were pears. This, it will be remembered, was the period in
which Belgian, French, and English pomologists were making pears a
specialty, and led by Van Mons, the Belgian scientist, had succeeded
in putting almost a new pear flora in the hands of fruit-growers.
Manning grew in America nearly all of Van Mons' introductions, received
direct from the originator, and many acquisitions from other European
pomologists as well, notably many varieties from Robert Thompson of
the London Horticultural Society. Manning was one of the most careful
observers amongst American pomologists, and to him pear-growers are
indebted for the first full and accurate descriptions of the fruits
grown in his time in this country. These were published in 1838 in
his _Book of Fruits_. American pomologies before and many since were
compilations. Manning made his descriptions first-hand and described
no fruit "not actually identified beyond a reasonable doubt of its
genuineness."
After Manning, one might well scan the work of several eminent American
pomologists who made pears a specialty. Robert Manning, Jr., continued
the work of his father with this fruit and the two Downings, Wilder,
Barry, and Thomson found the pear the most interesting of the fruits
which they grew. To all of these men, pomologists are indebted for the
introduction of many new and choice pears; for the identification of
varieties; for the correction of the nomenclature of this fruit; for
testing hundreds of seedlings and native and foreign varieties; and for
the distribution of pears throughout the whole country.
A history of the pear in America requires some mention of its
introduction in the Pacific states since that region is now the
greatest center of the pear industry in the country, and the home of
several notable varieties. Franciscan monks established missions in
California at about the time the colonies on the eastern coast were
fighting for their independence. To these they brought the cultivated
plants of Europe and among them the pear. Vancouver, in 1792, found all
of the hardy fruits growing at Santa Clara and the mission of San Buena
Ventura, California. Robinson, a little later, describes extensive
orchards connected with the mission of San Gabriel in which there were
pears in abundance. In 1846, Edwin Bryant found at the mission of San
Jose six hundred pear-trees bearing fruit in great abundance and full
perfection. The missions were secularized in 1834, and the orchards
fell into decay. But the pear and the vine withstood neglect, drouth,
and the browsing of cattle to furnish food to the Argonauts of '49. But
little came of these early plantings that affects the present industry
of growing pears in California either as to methods of culture or the
introduction of new varieties.
As an example of the remarkable recuperative power of the pear,
however, the orchard which Bryant described in 1846 at the San Gabriel
Mission is noteworthy. An enterprising pioneer, W. M. Stockton, grafted
over the old orchard in 1854 to improved varieties, and by pruning,
cultivation, and irrigation succeeded in rejuvenating it so that the
orchard became a profitable commercial plantation--the first commercial
pear orchard in California. There are other instances given in the
early accounts of fruit-growing in California in which the youth of old
pear-trees was renewed by generous treatment, showing that the pear
in a congenial soil and climate is most self-assertive in maintaining
life. It could hardly be otherwise than that the health and vigor of
these old trees stimulated the planting of fruits by the gold-seekers
who rushed to this region in 1849.
Meanwhile, orcharding had been established as an avocation. In the rich
Willamette Valley in Oregon, where the growing of wheat and cattle
was the vocation, the plantations of hardy fruits made by Henderson
Lewelling, near Portland, Oregon, in 1847, included pears and marked
the beginning of pear-culture in Oregon. Lewelling's venture, so
pregnant with results in pomology for the Pacific Northwest, has
been described in _The Cherries of New York_, and needs no detailed
description here. It is mentioned only to call attention to it as
another landmark in the history of the pear.
The padres began the cultivation of the pear at the missions. The
pioneers of '47 in Oregon and '49 in California started a new era in
the cultivation of this and other tree-fruits by introducing named and
improved varieties and extending their cultivation along the coast from
British Columbia to Lower California. So far, the plantings were fruit
gardens, not orchards. The era of commercial fruit-growing began in
the year 1869 in which the first fresh fruits were sent east by rail,
the shipment amounting to thirty-three tons, mostly pears and apples.
This event marks the beginning of a great industry in growing pears on
the Pacific slope for the fresh fruit market, and was followed shortly
by the introduction of canning and evaporation to use up the surplus
product. The special demands of these three more or less distinct
industries called for new varieties, and American pomology has been
enriched by a score or more varieties of pears from this great pear
region.
An event which has had a profound influence on pear-growing in the
whole country was the introduction of Oriental pears and their hybrids.
The mongrel offspring of the Oriental with the European pear were
unfortunate in regions where pure-bred European sorts can be grown, but
in vast tracts of the United States, as almost the whole of the South
and the Middle West, only hybrids of the two species find a congenial
environment, and here varieties with Oriental blood became a great
asset. The introduction of these pears, also, has greatly stimulated
the canning of this fruit in regions where fruit-preserving is an
industry. It was hoped that these hybrids could be used successfully as
stocks upon which European varieties could be worked, but the stocks
have not proved satisfactory, and their use is decreasing.
The Oriental, Chinese, or Sand pear came into America from Asia by
the way of Europe. The importation into Europe was made by the Royal
Horticultural Society of London in 1820. There seems to be no record
of when these pears reached America, but they were growing in the
Prince Nursery as early as 1840 under the names Chinese pear and
Sha Lea. Here, or in one of several nurseries to which it was sent
by Prince, the Oriental seems to have hybridized with the European
pear, the product being the Le Conte, which came to notice in 1846
and is the first of these hybrids on record. The Kieffer fruited
first in 1873 and proved to be much better than Le Conte except in
certain parts of the South. The Garber, another valuable hybrid, came
to notice about 1880. There are now, perhaps, two score of these
hybrids, with new ones coming from time to time. These hybrid pears,
while not blight-proof, are more immune to blight than the European
varieties, and pear-breeders are hybridizing the two species with the
hope of obtaining a variety with the fruit of the European type on
a tree of the Oriental type. Several promising seedlings bred with
this combination in view have been announced, and the number of these
hybrids is certain to be increased as time goes on.
The advent of Russian pears in the United States must also be mentioned
as a notable event in the history of this fruit. Russian pears are
hardy strains of _Pyrus communis_ grown from time immemorial in Russia.
The fruits of these Russian varieties are low in quality, but the
trees are much hardier than those of strains coming from more southern
parts of Europe. Some seventy or eighty of these hardy pears have
been imported from Russia, the first shipment coming in 1879 from
St. Petersburg. For a few years importations followed rapidly, and
fruit-growers in cold regions had high hopes of being able to grow
pears in competition with growers in more favored regions. The fruits
turned out to be so poor in quality and the trees so subject to blight,
however, that the cultivation of all but a few varieties has ceased.
Of the whole number, Bessemianka, possibly, is the only one worthy of
comparison with the pears of southern Europe, and this sort is rated
as poor where the southern pears are grown. Professor J. L. Budd,[14]
Ames, Iowa, and Charles Gibb, Montreal, Canada, were the two men most
instrumental in bringing these pears to America.
The chief import of these brief records of the origin and history of
cultivated pears in several countries is to show the evolution of
this fruit. It is hoped that the chapter will furnish inspiration for
further amelioration of the pear, and that it contains facts that will
be helpful in the future development of this fruit. The men, times,
and places have historical and narrative interest to pomologists; but
these are quite secondary to the knowledge of what the raw material
was from which our pear flora has been fashioned, and the methods of
domestication that were employed. This chapter is only a sketch--the
briefest possible outline of how the leading types of pears came to be,
and how and when they came to America.