PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUNL MEETING. 141 



A EEMAKKABLE PEAR. 



BY MR. HENRY AUGUSTINE, NORMAL, ILLS. 



Mr. Henry Augustine of Normal, Illinois, on invitation of President 

 Morrill, told of a pear tree in his state that is of extraordinary size and 

 fruitfulness. Mr. Augustine said there are as yet no trees of the variety 

 in the market, but there will be presently. It is the policy of the Illinois 

 state board of horticulture to investigate promising seedlings of any kind, 

 and it was this practice which caused them to become familiar with the 

 Sudduth pear, as the prodigy is named. Another pear which they have 

 found to be excellent is named the Lincoln pear, a seedling of exceeding 

 great promise. The original Sudduth tree is fifty-eight years old. Young 

 stock from it is very strong and thrifty. A few years ago Mr. Titus 

 Sudduth, who owns the original tree, coaxed me to propagate a few young 

 trees from it for him. I pulled them up and gave them to him, but 

 inquired about the trees after they got into bearing, and was greatly sur- 

 prised at the result. The trees in size look more like elms than pears. I 

 shall set an orchard of them. It is said, upon what is considered good 

 authority, that the original tree has borne 120 bushels of pears as a single 

 crop. Mr. Augustine read the following papers descriptive of the Sud- 

 duth pear: 



Regarding the Sudduth pear, I consider it a new variety ; or, if an old 

 one, it is an unknown one to me, both in fruit and wood. 



I learned the following facts by personal observation, measurements, 

 and from conversation with Mr. Sudduth and others owning the land 

 where the trees are growing but who are entirely disinterested so far as 

 the propagation of the trees is concerned. 



Mr. Sudduth told me he was 65 years old and that the tree antedates 

 him at least nine years, which would make the tree 74 years old. 



His first boyhood recollections were formed while living with relatives 

 in a house a few yards from the tree under whose branches the children 

 played. He has never seen a blighted twig on ihe tree. So far back as 

 he can remember it has borne fruit every year. He is confident that it 

 has not failed to bear annually for the last forty years, considers the fruit 

 of good quality and exactly alike on all the trees young and old. He has 

 made repeated plantings of quite a number of standard varieties but they 

 are all dead and gone and the Sudduth survives them all. The "old tree, " 

 the one from which the scions were taken that propagated the others, Mr. 

 Ira Knights told me was grown from seed brought from Ohio by 

 Thomas Constant, a relative of his wife. Mr. C. planted it on land he 

 bought of the government and sold to Lincoln's law partner. Judge 

 Stephen A. Logan, and by him sold to its present owner, Titus 



