36 Fruits and Fruit-Trees. 



European as well as Asiatic would be somewhat bold. 

 Many of the seemingly wild examples in Europe are 

 probably no more than descendants of ancient cultiva- 

 tion; and not only so, for, as with the apple, it seems 

 quite likely that the pear, as we have it to-day, has come 

 of the intermarriage (in some of its varieties, at least) of 

 three or four different ancestors. The primitive parent, 

 the Adam of the race, may be correctly imagined, in all 

 likelihood, from the crude forms of the Pyrus communis 

 still to be found ; but there can be little doubt that were 

 the pedigree of the pear in its best existing form within 

 reach, it would show the names also of the Pyrus eleagri- 

 folia of north-eastern Asia Minor ; the Pyrus Sinaica of 

 Syria, whence this tree was conveyed to Italy contem- 

 poraneously with the Damascus (or damask) rose; and 

 specially the Pyrus Achras of southern Russia, the beauti- 

 ful species so much honoured in the country of the Don 

 Cossacks the tree there resorted to on all occasions of 

 fete and festival, and beneath which the villagers keep up 

 their pretty annual custom of choosing a queen for the 

 year. It is not improbable, also, that crosses have taken 

 place between the crude Pyrus communis and certain 

 species of Mespilus, and likewise with the quince. Those 

 who care to explore the subject in all its complexity, 

 must consult the writings of Decandolle, Godron, Leroy, 

 Decaisne, and Karl Koch ; the last-named of whom con- 

 siders that Europe has no claim at all to the pear as an 

 indigenous plant, and refers it to China. 



In any case the cultivation, though very early, did not 



