20 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 



and southern Germany, and along the upper Rhine, but the people of 

 these regions seem to have been followers rather than leaders in developing 

 this fruit, having produced almost no meritorious varieties. America is 

 indebted to the vast region of central and western Europe for but one 

 major variety, the Forelle, and this sort is of little importance. 



Pomology, the world over, however, is indebted to Germany for much 

 valuable pomological literature. Cordus, Mayer, Christ, Diel, Dittrich, 

 Truchsess, Hinkert, Dochnahl, Oberdieck, Engelbrecht, Lauche, and 

 Gaucher, all Germans, and Kraft, an Austrian, have been industrious 

 compilers, and have given pomology some of its best texts on systematic 

 pomology. 



Cordus, earliest German pomological writer, wrote an illuminating 

 chapter in the history of the pear, which must be reproduced. Valerius 

 Cordus, 151 5-1544, a botanical genius, made botanical expeditions to nearly 

 every part of Germany, in the course of which he made special study of 

 the apple and the pear. He described fifty pears and thirty-one apples. 

 These descriptions are noteworthy as the earliest for these fruits in Ger- 

 many. Cordus is called by one great botanist, " the inventor of the art of 

 describing plants;" by another, he is said to have been "first to teach 

 men to cease from dependence on the poor descriptions of the ancients 

 and to describe plants anew from nature;" a third botanical authority 

 says of him, "the first of all men to excel in plant description;" while a 

 fourth writes of the four books of his Historia Plantarum "truly extraor- 

 dinary because of the accuracy with which the plants are described." 

 Thus, botanists accord him special distinction, but pomologists seem not 

 to know this resplendent systemist of the sixteenth century, who, as we 

 shall see, is especially deserving of pomological recognition. 



Cordus is entitled to honor in the history of pomology as first to print 

 descriptions of fruits for the purpose of identifying varieties. No doubt 

 as soon as the earth ceased to furnish spontaneously the primitive luxury 

 of ready-to-eat food in the shape of fruit, making culture necessary, varieties 

 were acquired and became commodities as they are today. Varieties were 

 certain to originate under cultivation, and their value was certain to be 

 recognized by our first ancestors, to whom the convenience, necessity, and 

 expediency of having a diversity of kinds of any fruit as well as of a means 

 of keeping them true to kind, must have been apparent at the beginning 

 of fruit culture. That such was the case, the most ancient sacred and 

 profane writings assure us. Varieties of the fig, olive, grape, and other 



