PEA 



438 



PEA 



Fig. 116.— (P. 435.) 



son of Wilmington, that the tree still 

 stands vigorous and healthy, producing 

 from fourteen to sixteen bushels of 

 fruit annually. Doct. T. says, 'so far 

 as my recollection of it goes, it has 

 never suffered from disease or been 

 attacked by blight, and I have never 

 known the fruit of the original tree, or 

 one of its descendants by budding or 

 grafting to crack, as does the fruit of the 

 old Beurre or Butter.' Doct. T. adds, 

 ' Delaware has some state pride in this 

 pear, quite as much as Pennsylvania 

 has in her fine Seckel, than both of 

 which I have yet to see their superiors 

 among the autumn pears.' In the 



opinion of some competent judges he 

 might have gone a little further and 

 said, their equals ; and yet from some 

 unaccountable cause, the Washington 

 is comparatively unknown. Coxe does 

 not even name it in his ' view of the 

 cultivation of fruits' published in 1817, 

 and Kenrick from the notice of it in his 

 ' Orchardist' had evidently never seen 

 it. Downing has several typographical 

 errors in his description ; that portion 

 destined to be history, should be 

 amended in his next edition. 



"The outline is not unlike that of the 

 old Butter, Virgalieu or St. Michael, 

 as it is indifferently called, but rather 



