THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 13 



In the Capitulaire dc Villis, Chapter LXX, Charlemagne is reported 

 to have commanded his orchardists to plant pears of distinct kinds for 

 distinct purposes. That the command was of sufficient importance to be 

 recorded in a capitulaire indicates that Charlemagne esteemed this fruit. 

 The order runs: " Plant pear trees whose products, because of pleasant 

 flavor, could be eaten raw, those which will furnish fruits for cooking, and, 

 finally, those which mature late to serve for use in winter." There is 

 little information in this brief command, but it tells us that a considerable 

 number of varieties of pears were grown in France in the ninth century, 

 and that they were of sufficient importance to hold the attention of a great 

 and busy monarch. 



Either the culture of the pear abruptly ceased with the death of 

 Charlemagne or records ceased to be kept that would throw light on the 

 agriculture of the next five centuries, for from the tenth to the fifteenth 

 century is an unchartered waste in the history of the pear in France. 

 Undoubtedly pears were cultivated during this time by the monks who 

 had the time, the taste, and the land for carrying on agriculture. When 

 the pear comes to light again in the happier period for pomology of the 

 sixteenth century, the many names of monasteries in the list of varieties 

 suggest that the monks not only busied themselves with the culture of 

 the fruit but greatly increased the number of kinds of pears. 



Three great minds now appeared to make France the leading country 

 in the production of agricultural literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries and all paid attention to pomology. The names of Charles 

 Estienne, Olivier de Serres, and Le Lectier in agriculture mark the 

 departure from traditions handed down from the old Greeks and Romans 

 to the beginning of a new agriculture founded on first-hand study and 

 observation. The printing-press, it is true, was now an invaluable ally, 

 but these three men were of an original bent of mind and would have been 

 distinguished in any period before printing. 



Charles Estienne, the first and the least of these three early geniuses 

 of French agriculture, published several works on agriculture, mostly 

 compilations, but all containing original observations, in one of which, his 

 " Seminarium," printed in Paris in 1540, is a list of sixteen pears with 

 brief descriptions of each. Not one of Estienne's pears is now important, 

 but all appear in the histories of minor sorts in the last chapter of this 

 text. 



De Serres, known in France as " The Father of Agriculture," published 



