THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 49 



immense blight-proof tree. No doubt the variety could still be found in 

 this part of the Mississippi valley. One wishes that the American-born 

 descendants and the conquerers of these early settlers from Normandy 

 were a.s energetic in forwarding horticulture as the first settlers. After 

 the invasion of the English and later the Americans, there is little evidence 

 of progress in horticulture in this region, until the early years of the nine- 

 teenth century. 



Another famous pear-tree of the Middle West is worthy of notice as 

 an evidence of early interest in horticulture. This tree, known as the 

 Ockletree pear, from the name of its owner, has acquired fame as the largest 

 pear-tree of which there is record. The tree was a seedling brought from 

 Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1804, and was planted in an orchard at Vin- 

 cennes, Indiana. It bore a number of record-breaking crops, the largest of 

 which was 140 bushels of pears borne in 1837. In 1855, the trunk measured 

 ten and one-half feet in circumference at the smallest place below the limbs ; 

 the top was estimated to have a spread of 75 feet. The tree gained its 

 great port and productiveness from spread of branch rather than height, 

 which was estimated to be only 65 feet. The variety was unknown, but 

 the fruit was said to be somewhat inferior in quality. This monarch of 

 its species was struck by a tornado in 1867 which stripped off its branches 

 and caused the death of the tree a few years later. 



Another living monument marked the beginnings of pear-culture in 

 America until 1866, when the trunk, little more than a shell, was broken 

 down by a dray, having furnished shade and shelter in a New York garden 

 for 220 years. This garden was laid out by the redoubtable Peter Stuyvesant 

 who took the reins of government in New Amsterdam in 1647, at which 

 time this pear-tree was planted. The pear was a Summer Bon Chretien, 

 said to have been imported from Holland in a tub. Stuyvesant's garden, 

 kept in a high state of cultivation by forty or fifty negro slaves, was called 

 the " Bouwery," now the Bowery, and the pear-tree in it stood at what 

 is now the corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street. No doubt 

 other pears were imported from Holland at the same time, and from these 

 and seeds and sprouts, this fruit was started in the Dutch settlements up 

 and down the Hudson, where the pear even to this day is a favorite fruit, 

 finding here a more congenial soil and climate than in any other part of 

 America. 



Soon after Governor Stuyvesant planted his bowery of fruits, flowers, 

 and vegetables, the French laid out orchards in the vicinity of New York 



4 



