THE PEAR 161 



of the nineteenth century in a fence corner on 

 the farm of a man whose name it bears near 

 Philadelphia. 



At the time of its origin the Seckel was pro- 

 nounced by the conservative London Horti- 

 cultural 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 introduc- 

 tion 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 estab- 

 lished 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 pears have certain qualities of 

 hardiness and resistance to disease that make 



Vol. 3 Bur. F 



