THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 



17 



La Quintinye, the most noted French pomologist of his time, in 1690 

 listed 67 pear varieties. The Belgians probably had all of these. What 

 were they? Most of them were old sorts — some were centuries old. 

 All, so far as their histories show, originated by chance in garden, orchard, 

 hedge row, and forest. No one seems yet to have planted seed with a 

 view of obtaining new and better pears. Camerarius in 1694 had made 

 known the fact of sex in plants. Soon after, experiments in hybridization 

 began, but no one as yet had hybridized pears. Lastly, nearly all pears, 

 before the Belgians began to improve them, were crisp or breaking in flesh, 

 the crevers of the French, while the soft-fleshed, melting pears, the beurres 

 of the French, were as yet hardly known. Now, mostly owing to the 

 work of the Belgians, the buttery pears predominate. 



Of the means by which Hardenpont obtained his superior pears, there 

 is no precise knowledge. Whether his new sorts were lucky chances out 

 of a large number of promiscuous seedlings, or whether he was a pioneer 

 in hybridizing can never be known. Du Mortier, a distinguished Belgian 

 botanist, gives the credit of hybridization to the Abbe, basing his opinion 

 on the fact that the characters of most of Hardenpont's varieties are plainly 

 a commingling of two well-known parents which could hardly be the case 

 if they were happy chances were fate ever so kindly disposed. 



Hardenpont soon had many imitators in Belgium. Indeed, the 

 Belgians seem to have been quite carried off their feet by pear-breeding, 

 and during the first half of the nineteenth century a fad like the " tulip 

 craze " of Holland and the " mulberry craze " of America reigned in the 

 country. Among the breeders are found the names of priests, physicians, 

 scientists, apothecaries, attorneys, tradesmen, and gentlemen of leisure. 

 The introduction of new varieties made notable in horticulture the towns 

 of Mons, Tournaii, Enghien, Louvain, Malines, and Brussels. The 

 awarding of medals for new pears produced the horticultural sensations 

 of the times. Hundreds if not thousands of new varieties were introduced, 

 of which many, it is true, have proved worthless, others of but secondary 

 merit, while still others, as we shall find, are even now among the best 

 pears under cultivation. But the great fact, be it remembered, is that 

 these amateur pear-breeders wrought in a few years a complete transforma- 

 tion in a fruit that had been domesticated and had been fairly stable for 

 over 2000 years. 



A few names besides Hardenpont stand out prominently and must be 

 mentioned. Of these, Van Mons is best known. Jean Baptiste Van Mons, 



