Descriptions of Select Varieties of Pears. 245 



been traced. Some six or eight years since, and, perhaps, ten, 

 Deacon Joseph Swan, of Onondaga Hollow — four miles south 

 of this — had a son living in Rochester. In the fall of the 

 year, he took from home, and exhibited in Rochester, some 

 specimens of this pear. It received universal admiration. Ell- 

 wanger & Barry procured scions from Mr. Swan — grafted into 

 an old tree or trees — and have the fruit now growing. They 

 also propagated the tree in their nursery, and called it ' Swan's 

 Orange,' and ' The Onondaga Seedling.' They have spread 

 the knowledge of the tree extensively. I have, this season, 

 undertaken to trace its history. I traced the only trees I 

 have yet found, being Mr. Swan's single tree, and five owned 

 by one Killman, to the garden of Henry Case, at Liverpool, 

 five miles north of here, on the Onondaga Lake. Case left this 

 country many years since ; but I found him by letter at Gran- 

 ville, in Ohio. I have a letter from him, received a few weeks 

 since, in which he says that he cut the graft from which his 

 original tree grew, on the ground of the father of the late 

 Fisher Curtiss, Esq., of this town, in Farmington, Conn., in 

 the Avinter of 1806 ; that, in the spring of 1806, he put the 

 graft into a small tree, about three miles west of Onondaga 

 Hill ; and, in 1808, moved the tree to Liverpool, where it died 

 in 1823. But, in the mean time, it had become a large tree, 

 and borne fruit, and many grafts had been taken from it; he 

 particularly remembers Mr. Kill man's. He does not state the 

 cause of the death of his tree in 1823. Mr. Swan informed 

 me that his tree came from Case's. Swan's tree is old and 

 not thrifty — grows in the grass — I presume was never ma- 

 nured or dug about — and the place is a steep side hill, and 

 every way unfavorable. There are no young shoots on the 

 tree, or were none last year. Mr. Killman has one small tree, 

 and four in bearing about fifteen years old. They are also in 

 grass, but are thrifty, hardy, excellent growers and bearers — 

 bear every year, and abundantly. These are the only trees 

 known here. 



" I have not yet attempted to trace the history of the tree 

 at Farmington, Conn., but if no other person does, I will." 



Since the receipt of the above, we have had several letters 

 from Mr. Leavenworth, but he has been unable to learn 

 any thing respecting its history in Connecticut, and, though 

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