THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 



CHAPTER I 



HISTORY OF THE PEAR 



The pear has no history if history be defined as a record of evolution. 

 Even the annals of the pear, which but state events in chronological order, 

 are a heap of confused facts and dates with important data missing at every 

 turn. The origin of the cultivated pear is so completely hidden in 

 prehistoric darkness that it can never be known precisely from what wild 

 pear it came. The historian must content himself with recording what 

 the pear was when written records began; what the touch of time has 

 done since the first written accounts; and what the events and by whom 

 directed which have aided time in making its impressions since cultivated 

 pears have accompanied its flight. 



Happily, it does not matter much what the pear was before husbandmen 

 appeared on the scene. But from the day the pear began to supply the 

 needs of men, and in its turn to require ministration from those it nourished, 

 its history becomes of importance to all mankind. Those whom it helps 

 sustain as well as those who tend the pear, may well ask: What was the 

 raw material when the domestication of the pear began? How has this 

 material been fashioned into the pear of the present? Who began domesti- 

 cation and who has carried it forward? And, gauged by past progress, 

 what further progress is possible? These are questions of prime importance 

 to those who seek to improve the pear; they throw light on the culture 

 of the pear; and they are of general interest to all husbandmen, and to 

 all interested in the world's food supply. The history of the pear is impor- 

 tant, as has been said, only as it is connected with the history of man. 

 Yet, this history must begin with the wild pear. 



WILD PEARS 



Botanists number from twenty to twenty-five species of pears, all 

 of which are found in the northern hemisphere of the Old World, there 

 being no true pear native to the southern hemisphere or to the New World. 

 Some ten or twelve wild pears are found in China, several of which overrun 

 the limits of China; three or four are natives of Japan; at least one has 



