54 THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



proof pear trees, and so Dame N^ature, tired of .waiting on man's dull- 

 ness, lias tried her hand at hybridising, and given us the first step in 

 the way of this new departure. 



In the Gardener's Monthly for June, 1878, is a communication 

 from S. B. Parsons, of Flushing, N, Y., giving an account of a pear tree 

 he saw in Thomasville, Georgia, known there as the Chinese Sand 

 Pear, but which he could not recognize as the variety with which he 

 had been familiar for thirty years by that name, because this Georgia 

 variety was reported to him to be nearly equal to the Bartlett, and to 

 ripen in July.* He was told that M. Le Comte, the well known 

 entomologist, had found it growing on the coast. Mr. Parsons says of 

 it, "as an orn&mental tree it possesses great beauty. Its habit is more 

 pyramidal than that of the Buffam Peg,r, and greatly resembles that 

 of the Lombardy Poplar. Its foliage is large, thick, with a liglit color 

 and glossy stem, which is remarkably attractive. Its vegetation is 

 also very early. Other pears near it had just commenced sliowing 

 life, while the Le Comte Pear was in full leaf Its fruit came in 

 small quantities .to New York market last July, and brought twelve 

 dollars per bushel." 



At the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia some pears were 

 exhibited which M'ere taken from an accidental seedling, growing upon 

 an old place where trees of the Chinese Sand Pear had been planted 

 for ornament. There happened to be trees of the Bartlett growing 

 near to the Sand Pear, and it is supposed that the pollen from the 

 Bartlett had effected a cross with it, and that these pears were the 

 result. Wm. Parry, of Cinnaminson, N. J., was so well pleased with 

 it that he secured the tree upon which these pears grew, and is now 

 distributing it under the name of Kieffer's Hybrid. The original tree 

 is said to have commenced fruiting in 1873, and has yielded good 

 crops every year since. It is not only productive, but it maintains 

 the same healthy habit as the Sand Pear, manifesting no symptoms of 

 blight or of any disease whatever. The fruit is of good size, weighing 

 from ten to twelve ounces, very uniform, greenish yellow with some 

 russet; flesh white, juicy, and of good quality. It never rots at the core, 

 like Clapp's Favorite and Flemish Beauty; is ripe in October, and on 

 these accounts promises to become valuable as a market pear. 



Another seedling from the Chinese Sand Pear, supposed to be a 

 hybrid, has been raised by Mr. Garber, of Pennsylvania, and is said to 



