LUTHER BURBANK 
At the time of its origin the Seckel was pro- 
nounced by the conservative London Horticultur- 
ist Society to be superior to any European variety 
of fall pear then known. 
Rather curiously it chanced that the next very 
notable step in the progress of the pear also took 
place on a farm near Philadelphia. The owner 
of the farm was Mr. Peter Kieffer. The thing for 
which he was responsible was the introduction of 
a pear bearing his name, which originated through 
the chance hybridization of a pear of European 
strain with the Chinese sand pear, which had been 
introduced as an ornamental garden tree not long 
after relations were established between America 
and the Far East. 
The oriental pear which thus at last came to 
mingle its racial strains with those of this remote 
relative, after the two had traveled around the 
world in opposite directions, was a graceful tree 
having large and attractive flowers and bearing 
fruit of a pleasing fragrance but of such consist- 
ency as to be almost uneatable except when 
cooked. In spite of the defects of its fruit, how- 
ever, the oriental pear had certain qualities of 
hardiness and resistance to disease that made it a 
valuable mate for its European cousin. So the 
Kieffer pair soon gained popularity. 
So also did a number of other hybrid pears of 
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