48 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 



size of the trees and their vigor, healthfulness, productiveness, and lon- 

 gevity. 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 uncom- 

 mon, 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 immimity 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 habi- 

 tants 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 settle- 

 ments 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; Kas- 

 kaskia 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 settle- 

 ments 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 



