244 Descriptions of Select Varieties of Pears. 



County. The parent tree is dead, and it cannot now be as- 

 certained where it originated, and no one knows it except 

 from this source. It is a rapid grower, and an early and 

 abundant bearer. We consider it one of our very best pears, 

 and hope it will please you." On opening the box, we found 

 six unusually large pears, and we more than ever had 

 the impression that it must have been overrated, as a pear so 

 very large and handsome could not, by any possibility, have 

 been for some years cultivated without its qualities — if so 

 very superior — being widely and extensively known. As 

 they appeared rather hard, and not in a state for eating, we 

 placed them away to ripen. 



A fortnight after this, we ate one of the pears, and, to our 

 great surprise, we found it to possess qualities of the very high- 

 est excellence — qualities which we had scarcely found in any 

 pear we had ever tasted. We had just eaten of all the fine 

 kinds of the season, such as the Belle Lucrative, Flemish 

 Beauty, Louise Bonne de Jersey, Marie Louise, &c., and when 

 we state that neither of them came up to the Swan's Orange, 

 we only state what, in our humble opinion, we believe to be 

 true. At this time, we had not examined the specimens in 

 the bottom of the box, which were wrapped up in paper, and 

 our surprise was still mcreased when we found one of the 

 pears to weigh upwards of thirteen ounces. Four weeks 

 elapsed before we ate the last specimen, and, up to that pe- 

 riod, they remained perfectly sound, without the least appear- 

 ance of rot at the core. Indeed, we do not hesitate to afiirm 

 that, if the epithet of the " best pear in the world" belongs to 

 any variety, it is to the Swan's Orange. 



Desirous to give a full account of so remarkable a pear, 

 whose history appeared to be involved in some obscurity, we 

 applied to our friend Mr. Bissell to supply it, and, at the 

 same time, wrote to other correspondents, that we might have 

 all the particulars ; and we are happy to state that these have 

 been kindly furnished by E. W, Leavenworth, Esq., of Syr- 

 acuse, to whom we are indebted for the following account, 

 under the date of Dec. 26th last, so interesting that we make 

 no apology for its length : — 



" The entire history of the ' Onondaga Seedling' is em- 

 braced in the following facts, so far as the same has yet 



