164 LUTHER BURBANK 



TRAITS OF THE ORIENTAL PEAR 



About 1890 I imported from Japan large 

 quantities of the seeds of the Chinese sand pear. 

 The seedlings proved extremely variable. Some 

 of them grew six or seven feet the first year, 

 while others from the same lot of seed, under 

 exactly the same conditions, grew only a few 

 inches; and a corresponding rate of growth 

 characterizes the seedlings as long as they live. 

 But, although the seedlings themselves proved so 

 variable, their fruit was singularly uniform in 

 size and quality. 



As to shape, the fruit of the oriental pear is 

 usually oblate, approaching the globular. This 

 raises a rather curious, if not very important, 

 question as to whether the European pear owes 

 its very characteristic shape to artificial selection. 

 The ordinary pear, as everyone knows, has a 

 form that is so individual and so little duplicated, 

 that no single word of familiar usage describes it. 

 In this regard, as in a good many others, the 

 pear is unique. 



One would not commonly think of describing 

 anything as "apple-shaped," or "peach-shaped," 

 or "plum-shaped," but "pear-shaped" is a 

 cognomen that is at once convenient and 

 definitive. 



