CULTURE OF THE PEAR. 17 



The earliest writers mention the pear as a fruit growing abundantly in 

 Syria, Egypt, and Greece ; and a number of esteemed varieties were 

 introduced into Rome, about the period that Sylla conquered the last 

 named country; but several kmds had been there cultivated, before that 

 time. It is indigenous in Europe and Asia, but not in any portion of 

 America. 



Although so many trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants are mentioned 

 in the Old and New Testaments, neither the pear, or apple is named ; for 

 it has been conclusively established by Dr. Harris, in his Natural History 

 of the Bible, that the tree and fruit described by Joel, and in the books of 

 the Canticles, Proverbs and Leviticus, was the citron, and not the apple, as 

 the Hebrew word has been rendered in the EngHsh translations. 



The art of grafting by approach, being the only mode, which was 

 derived from nature, of multiplying and extending the various species, was 

 knoAvn at a very remote period ; and the process of cleft grafting and 

 budding, and of cultivating trees, for the purpose of ameliorating their 

 fruits, was carried to great perfection, as early as the age of Hesiod,^ — or 

 more than nine hundred years before the christian era ; and, from paintings 

 and sculptures in the temples and tombs of Egypt, it is evident that the 

 cereal grains, many of the cuhnary vegetables and most delicious fruits, 

 which have accompanied man, m a very remarkable manner, through 

 all the vicissitudes of his condition, since the dawn of civihzation, were 

 known and raised in that country, several thousand years before the birth 

 of Abraham. 



Theophrastus, Xenophon, Dioscorides, Cato, Varro, Virgil, Juvenal and 

 Pliny mention the pear, as one of the varieties of fruit, which were highly 

 appreciated, at the periods in which they flourished. At the epoch when 

 Homer wrote the Odyssey, gardening must have been well understood, for 

 he represents the aged Laertes planting fruit trees, when his son Ulysses 

 returned from the Trojan war. But even as late as the reign of Vespasian, 

 the number of varieties of fruit must have been very hmited, for, besides 

 the folloAving described pears, Pliny only names, in his Natiu*al History, 

 twentynine apples, eleven plums, eight cherries, four peaches, and the 

 grapes, which were commonly cultivated ; and as he possessed several 

 magnificent villas, where it is probable all the fruits, as well as ornamental 

 trees were collected, which could be reared in that climate, and as he was 

 the Linnaeus of antiquity, it is to be presumed that none were omitted, — 

 or, at least, only those of the most ordinary kinds. 



Among the Roman Pears the Crusiumia were held in high estunation, 

 from their bemg the earliest. The Falerna succeeded and were very juicy. 

 Other varieties, which were dark colored, were called Syrian. Several 

 were designated by the names of the countries from whence they were 

 introduced. Those which bore Roman names, received them from the 

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