28 The Journal 
liarly rich in distinct species of pears, 
and we should look to these wild species, 
rather than cultivated varieties, for our 
best stock material. The most exten- 
sive work on pears with particular 
reference to the securing of stocks, resist- 
ant or immune to fire-blight, has been 
done by Mr. F. C. Reimer, of the 
Oregon Experiment Station. Mr. 
Reimer began his work five or six years 
ago and has assembled probably one 
of the largest collections of pears in the 
world. The special pear station located 
at Talent, Ore., where Mr. Reimer is 
conducting his investigations, is one 
of the great pear-growing sections of the 
United States. This is in the Rogue 
River Valley. Fire-blight is very de- 
structive in this valley and at other 
places on or near the Pacific coast. The 
blight frequently attacks the bodies or 
trunks of the trees, and it was largely 
to meet that situation that Mr. Reimer 
inaugurated a line of work, having for 
its primary object the discovery of 
types that would give a blight-resistant 
root and body upon which the suscep- 
tible tops could be worked. It is be- 
lieved by Mr. Reimer that if blight- 
resistant or blight-immune trunks could 
be secured, the disease might be held 
in check among the branches by rigid 
attention to surgical and antiseptic 
methods. Mr. Reimer’s valuable work 
is still in progress, and he is now on a 
second trip to the Orient for the purpose 
of securing new facts and new pear 
material. 
THE WORK OF FOREIGN EXPLORERS 
We are indebted to two agricultural 
explorers for the larger number of 
pear species and varieties now at our dis- 
posal for study, testing and trial. The 
late Frank N. Meyer, of the Office of 
Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, 
and Mr. E. H. Wilson, of the Arnold 
Arboretum, have rendered horticulture 
incalculable service in supplying material 
that has already proved very promising. 
Mr. Meyer's collections are quite ex- 
tensive and have been widely dis- 
seminated. Beginning in 1905 and 
continuing until his death in 1918, 
Mr. Meyer collected and sent in more 
of Heredity 
than 125 separate and distinct lots ‘of 
pears. This represents probably fifteen 
or twenty species and twenty-five to 
thirty varieties. A good many of 
Meyer’s pears are assembled at the 
Chico, Calif., Field Station of the 
Office of Foreign Seed and Plant 
Introduction. Quite a large collection 
of Meyer’s and other pear introductions 
have been brought together and are 
now being grown at the Yarrow Field 
Station near Washington, D. C. 
Mr. Wilson began his work on pears 
more than a dozen years ago and, under 
the direction of Dr. C. 5. Sargent, of 
the Arnold Arboretum, has assembled a 
fine collection of oriental and other 
species at the Arboretum near Boston, 
Mass. The following notes are based 
chiefly on field studies and tests at our 
field stations and work in cooperation 
with nurserymen and others: 
The Usurt Wild Pear, Pyrus usu- 
riensis, S. P. I. No. 44237 (see 
Fig. 10)—This wild pear, first found 
along the Usuri River, north of Korea, 
has been known to botanists for more 
than fifty years. It has a wide range, 
having been found in numerous places 
in Korea, China, Manchuria and Siberia. 
Meyer reported it in great abundance 
from Chihli Province, north of Pekin, 
in 1907. In 1916 he revisited the 
region and found many of the trees 
of this wild pear had been cut down 
and Indian corn or maize was being 
grown in their place. Wilson found 
the pear growing abundantly in northern 
Korea. The experiments made by 
Reimer with seedlings of this pear gave 
much encouragement at first, for they 
proved to be very resistant to fire- 
blight. With us it has proved a very 
slow grower, rather subject to leaf- 
blight, and therefore unable to hold 
its leaves during the budding and 
propagating season. We can _ hardly 
class this pear as a promising new stock. 
Our object in introducing it here is a 
precautionary one. The pear has been 
considerably exploited as a stock. Seed 
is being offered, and aside from the 
question of the authenticity of the 
seed, there is the broader problem of 
the actual value of the seedlings for 
