254 FLORIDA FRUITS CHINESE SAND PEARS. 



for his first shipment; the usual net price, however, is 

 from five dollars to six dollars a bushel. 



It is a peculiar feature of this pear that it perfects not 

 only one crop in one season, but sometimes partially ma- 

 tures a second before the first is all marketed. 



The pears are picked before they are fully ripe, and 

 then spread out on one blanket and covered by another. 

 This ripens them evenly and gives a rich, golden color, 

 which makes them as pleasing to the eye as they are to the 

 palate, for the Le Conte, be it known, is a fine-flavored, 

 juicy, aromatic fruit. 



The tree has no "off years," but gives continual crops 

 year after year. The original tree, in Liberty County, 

 Ga. , is the greatest bearing pear tree known ; has never 

 missed a crop, and has yielded at one picking thirty-nine 

 bushels of large, smooth, marketable pears. 



Another thing that extremely enhances the value of this 

 remarkable fruit, in a commercial sense, is its unusual 

 keeping qualities. The Le Conte is one of the best, if 

 not the very best, shipping pear that the world has ever 

 produced, excepting only its own offspring, as we are 

 about to note. 



KIEFFER'S HYBRID. 



In the year 1868 Peter Kieffer, of Philadelphia, planted 

 a quantity of seeds of a Chinese sand pear in his garden. 

 One of the seedlings thus raised proved to be the bearer 

 of a new variety of pear, and one of exceeding merit in 

 every respect. This seedling commenced bearing in the 

 year 1873, five years from germination of the seed, and 

 has borne full crops every year since, the quantity steadily 

 increasing with the bearing surface of the tree. In the 

 fall of 1877 it yielded four bushels, the next eight, and so 

 up to the present season the yield has gone 041 steadily in- 

 creasing. 



