PLANT BREEDING. I23 



years, Mr. Munson has produced 75,000 seedling varieties, 

 including hybrids between the Post-Oak grape of the South and 

 several other native species, as well as combinations of well 

 known varieties and species. 



THE PEAR 



The European pear is of particularly fine quality and in recent 

 years has been found to succeed well on the Pacific Coast, but it 

 has never proved wholly satisfactory in the Eastern States and 

 is a total failure in the South. As will be remembered, Flemish 

 Beauty and several of our choicest European varieties are found 

 especially subject to disease, and in the earlier years of Ameri- 

 can pomological history the failure of the varieties which were 

 general favorites in France and Belgium was attributed to 

 deterioration of the variety itself, — in other words to " running 

 out." William Kenrick wrote of these pears :* " Except in 

 certain sections of the city, and some few solitary and highly 

 favored situations in the country round, they have become either 

 so uncertain in their bearing — so barren — so mortally diseased — 

 that they are no longer to be trusted ; they are no longer what 

 they were once with us, and what many of them are still 

 described to be by most foreign writers." 



One of the first varieties of native introduction was the 

 Seckel, and to this day it remains the standard of excellence 

 among pears. The origin of this variety is not quite certain, 

 though it is supposed to have been a chance seedling. It first 

 attracted attention in the garden of Mr. Seckel of Philadelphia, 

 who is generally regarded as the originator ; but Thomas 

 Andrew Knight believed it to have originated in a Swedish 

 settlement near the city about the middle of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, Mr. Seckel having obtained cions of it from Jacob Weiss, 

 who obtained the original tree from the Swedes. f 



Some other well known varieties originated as chance seed- 

 lings in the early part of the last century. Among these may 

 be mentioned Tyson, Andrews, Fulton and some others. As the 

 superior value of American seedlings became recognized, the 

 practice of planting the seeds of the best fruits became common. 

 One of the most extensive producers of these seedling varieties 



* New American Orchardist (2nd ed.), 25. 

 t Cf. Trans. Lond. Hort. Soc'y, 3 : 256, 1819. 



