THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 45 



under President Adams, was a brother of John. At the breaking out of 

 the Revolution he was Colonel of the Essex regiment, and on the day when 

 this tree was grafted by John Pickering, who was an invalid, his more vig- 

 orous brother mustered his regiment and marched to intercept the retreat- 

 ing British troops. Timothy Pickering was also interested in agriculture, 

 having been Secretary of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agricul- 

 ture, the oldest agricultural society in the United States, and after his return 

 to Massachusetts, was the first President of the Essex County Agricultural 

 Society. The estate on which the old pear tree stands was devised by 

 John Pickering, who died unmarried, to his nephew John, son of Timothy, 

 the most eminent American philologist of his time. On his death, it 

 descended to his son John, the present owner, to whom I am indebted for 

 the facts here stated, as well as for the specimens of fruit exhibited at 

 Chicago last September." 



Out of an embarrassing number of references in regard to the early 

 introduction of the pear in New England one may choose the following: 

 Francis Higginson, writing in 1629, notes that pears are under cultivation 

 in New England. 1 In the same year, a memorandum of the Massachusetts 

 Company shows that seeds of pears, with those of other fruits were sent 

 to the colony. 2 Trees from these seeds grew amazingly fast in the virgin 

 soils of the colony, for John Josselyn, who made voyages to New England 

 in 1638 and 1639, writing in his New England Rarities Discovered, notes 

 that " fruit trees prosper abundantly " enumerating, among others, those 

 of the pear. 3 Josselyn further says "the Kernels sown or Succors planted 

 produce as fair and good fruit, without grafting, as the trees from which 

 they were taken," and that " the Countrey is replenished with fair and 

 large Orchards." As early as 1641 a nursery had been started in Massa- 

 chusetts and no doubt was selling pear-trees. These probably came from 

 seeds, for trees were not imported until in the next century. Varieties 

 were few then as for many years later. In 1726, Paul Dudley, one of the 

 Chief Justices of Massachusetts, in a paper in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions, says, " Our apples are without doubt as good as those of England* 

 and much fairer to look to, and so are the pears, but we have not got all 

 the sorts." In another paragraph, Justice Dudley gives the following 

 account of several varieties of pears in these first orchards in New England. 



He says: 4 "An Orange Pear Tree grows the largest and yields the 



1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections i st Ser. i : 1 1 8. 



2 Mass. Records i : 24. 



8 Mass. Hist. Collections 3d Ser. 23:337- 

 4 Hist. Mass. Hort. Soc. p. 16. 1829-1878. 



