THE PEARS OF NEW YORK l8l 



ous, fruitful, endure heat best, are least susceptible to blight, and withstand 

 best the ravages of San Jos6 scale. There are several faults, however; 

 the trees are tender to cold, in some soils refuse to set fruit, are often self- 

 sterile, and sometimes with the best of care bear only pears of small size. 

 Worthless for dessert, much can be said for the fruits of Kieffer for culinary 

 preparation. Cooking removes the disagreeable natural taste of the raw 

 pear, and leaves a good product. Canned, the pears retain their shape, 

 color, and flavor well; therefore, and because white and inviting, canned 

 Kieffers are preferred by commercial canners. Use in the cannery is the 

 true place for Kieffer pears in regions where better sorts can be grown for 

 dessert. Now that the first flush of popularity is past, it would seem a 

 wise precaution on the part of pear-growers to grow this fruit chiefly for the 

 cannery, supplying the demands for dessert pears with worthier varieties, 

 although as long as consumers buy it to eat out of hand, growers cannot be 

 blamed for growing it in commercial orchards. 



The seed parent of Kieffer was the Sand pear of China. Peter Kieffer, 1 

 who lived at Roxborough, near Philadelphia, for many years grew the 

 Chinese Sand pear and sold the trees for ornamental purposes. In his 

 garden there were also trees of Bartlett. Among chance seedlings, Mr. 

 Kieffer observed one of peculiar growth which he saved. This tree bore 

 fruit first in 1863. Later, it was exhibited at the Massachusetts Horti- 

 cultural Society, and finally at the Centennial Exposition where in 1876 it 

 was named Kieffer. The variety was added to the fruit-list of the American 

 Pomological Society in 1883. 



Tree of medium size, vigorous, upright, dense-topped, hardy, very productive; 

 branches slender, nearly smooth, reddish-brown, covered with dull ash-gray scarf-skin, 

 marked with few small lenticels; branchlets medium to long, reddish-brown mingled with 

 green, smooth, slightly pubescent, with numerous, large, raised, very conspicuous lenticels. 



1 Peter Kieffer, a nurseryman of good reputation in his state, deserves pomological honors because of 

 his keenness of vision in selecting for distribution the pear which bears his name. Few men would have 

 recognized merit in the seedling from which the Kieffer pear came. Peter Kieffer was born in Alsace in 

 1812, whence he emigrated to America in 1834. In Europe he had worked for twelve years in the garden 

 of the King of France and upon his arrival in America sought employment as a gardener which he found on 

 the estate of James Gowen at Mt. Airy, near Philadelphia. In 1853 he started a small nursery at Rox- 

 borough, a short distance from Philadelphia. Much of his stock was imported from Europe, most of which 

 came from Van Houtte, the famous Belgian nurseryman. From Van Houtte, Kieffer obtained seeds of 

 the Chinese Sand pear from which came the Kieffer pear as described in the history of the variety. As a 

 token of his faith in his new variety, Kieffer planted an orchard of this pear, some of the trees of which still 

 live and bear. Peter Kieffer died in 1890, having made an important contribution to horticulture even 

 though the variety sent out by him is far from perfect and has been much over-praised and over-planted. 



