LUTHER BURBANK 
It is only fair to recall, however, that the new 
beginnings in the development of the pear took 
place in western Europe independently of an ori- 
ental alliance. 
NEw BEGINNINGS IN EUROPE 
The pears of to-day, as known in the eastern 
United States, and for that matter most of the 
finest Californian varieties, are the bearers of an 
impulse to development that was given by 
a French horticulturist, Jean Baptiste Van Mons, 
and Andrew Knight of England about a century 
ago. Van Mons acted on a theory, now aban- 
doned, that young plants produce the best prog- 
eny. But this led him “to sow, to re-sow, to sow 
again, to sow perpetually.” And he selected his 
seeds with such care as to develop many improved 
varieties. In particular, he taught some pears to 
bear fruit in three years from the seed. 
Van Mons produced by selection about four 
hundred new varieties of pears, among others a 
dwarf variety that was a prolific bearer. 
Meantime, however, the pear was making its 
way in America, and one of the most famous va- 
rieties, the Seckel, originated in the early part of 
the nineteenth century on the farm of a man 
whose name it bears near Philadelphia. This was 
a “spontaneous” variant or mutant, the precise 
origin of which is unknown. 
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