THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 2OQ 



purposes. The trees are unusually satisfactory, because of which the 

 variety should make a good parent from which to breed. 



The name "Pound " has been applied to a number of varieties, notably 

 Black Worcester, Angora, Verulam, and others. The variety now known 

 as Pound in America is more generally known in Europe as Belle Angevine 

 or Uvedale s St. Germain. This sort appears to have been raised by a 

 Dr. Uvedale, who was a schoolmaster at Eltham, England, in 1690. Miller 

 in his Dictionary, in 1724, speaks of him as a Dr. Udal of Enfield, " a 

 curious collector and introducer of many rare exotics, plants and flowers," 

 and Bradley, in 1733, speaks of the pear as " Dr. Udale's great pear, called 

 by some the Union pear." William Robert Prince mentions the Pound 

 pear in 1831 saying that " it often weighs from twenty-five to thirty ounces, 

 and one was exhibited in New Jersey about four years since, weighing 

 forty and a half ounces." In 1870, according to Wickson, a Pound pear 

 sent from Sacramento to the late Marshall P. Wilder, President of the 

 American Pomological Society, weighed four pounds and nine ounces. 

 In 1862, the American Pomological Society added this variety to its fruit- 

 catalog under the name Uvedale' s St. Germain, but in 1871 changed the 

 name to Pound. The name continued to appear in the Society's catalogs 

 until 1909 when it was dropped. 



Tree medium in size, upright, dense-topped, hardy, very productive; trunk stocky, 

 shaggy; branches thick, shaggy, zigzag, dull reddish-brown, heavily covered with gray 

 scarf-skin, marked with many large lenticels; branchlets short, with short internodes, 

 brownish-red, mottled with gray scarf-skin, smooth, glabrous, with few small, elongated 

 lenticels. 



Leaf -buds large, long, conical or pointed, plump, free; leaf-scars prominent. Leaves 

 4j in. long, 3! in. wide, ovate, thin, stiff; apex taper-pointed; margin glandular, finely 

 serrate; petiole if in. long, slender. Flower-buds large, long, conical or pointed, very 

 plump, free, usually singly on short spurs; flowers open early, if in. across, large, well dis- 

 tributed, average 7 buds in a cluster; pedicels 15 in. long, pubescent, pale green. 



Fruit matures in February; large, 4 in. long, i\ in. wide, uniform in size and shape, 

 obovate-acute-pyriform, with unequal sides; stem long, thick, curved; cavity obtuse, 

 very shallow, narrow, russeted, furrowed, drawn up in a fleshy ring about the stem; calyx 

 large, open; lobes separated at the base, obtuse; basin shallow, narrow, obtuse, slightly 

 furrowed, symmetrical; skin thick, tough, with patches of russet, dull, roughened by the 

 dots and by the russet markings; color golden-yellow, often marked on the exposed cheek 

 with a bronze or pinkish blush; dots numerous, russet, very conspicuous; flesh yellowish, 

 firm, granular, very tough, subacid, inferior in flavor; quality very poor. Core large, 

 closed, axile, with meeting core-lines; calyx-tube short, wide, conical; carpels pear-shaped; 

 seeds very large, brownish-black, wide, long, acuminate. 

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