126 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 



Fondante d'Automne. 6. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 387, fig. 168. 1845. 7". Hogg Fruit Man. 578. 1884. 



Seigneur. 8. Ann. Pom. Belgey.^VX. 1859. 9. Pom. France 1: No. 28, PI. 28. 1863. 10. Mas 

 Le Verger 3: Pt. 1, 21, fig. 9. 1866-73. 



Bergamote Lucrative. II. Leroy Diet. Pom. 1:247, figs. 1867. 



Seigneur d' Espcren. 12. Guide Prat. 59, 303. 1876. 



Esperen's Herrenbirne. 13. Mathieu Norn. Pom. 212. 1889. 14. Gaucher Pom. Prak. Obst. No. 

 37, PI. 85. 1894. 



Lucrative. 15. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 36. 1889. 



This good old pear has been a standard autumn sort for nearly a century. 

 The internal characters of both flesh and flavor are nearly perfect, but 

 externally much more might be desired as to shape and size. In flesh and 

 flavor, the fruits are of the Bergamot type — fine-grained, buttery, juicy, and 

 sugary, with a musky taste and perfume. The fruits are not as large as is 

 desirable, and are variable in shape and color, external defects which a 

 rather handsome color offsets in part. The trees are more satisfactory 

 than the fruits. They bear enormously and almost annually on either 

 standard or dwarfing stocks; they are very vigorous, with a somewhat 

 distinct upright-spreading habit of growth; are hardier than the average 

 variety of this fruit; and are rather more resistant to blight than the average 

 variety. The fruits are too small for a good commercial product, but their 

 delectable flavor and luscious flesh make them as desirable as any other 

 pear for home use; besides which the trees grow so well, and are so easily 

 managed that the variety becomes one of the very best for the home planter. 



Belle Lucrative is of Flemish origin. In 1831 it was growing in the 

 London Horticultural Society's gardens at Chiswick, and was then described 

 by Lindley as " another of the new Flemish pears." It had been taken 

 to England by a Air. Braddick who received the cions from M. Stoffels of 

 Mechlin. By some writers it is considered probable that it originated with 

 M. Stoffels, but the leading Belgian and French writers say that it was raised 

 by Major Esperen, also of Mechlin, about 1827. In this country it first 

 fruited in the Pomological Garden of Robert Manning, Salem, Massachu- 

 setts, in 1835 or J 836. The American Pomological Society added the variety 

 to its fruit catalog-list in 1852 under the name Belle Lucrative. 



Tree medium in size, vigorous, upright-spreading, dense-topped, rapid-growing, 

 hardy, productive; branches smooth, grayish-brown mingled with red, covered with scarf- 

 skin, with numerous elongated lenticels; branchlets slender, short, light brown, glossy, 

 smooth, glabrous, with few small, inconspicuous lenticels. 



Leaf -buds small, short, conical, pointed, plump, appressed. Leaves 3 in. long, i\ in. 

 wide, stiff; apex abruptly pointed; margin finely serrate, tipped with very small, sharp 

 glands; petiole 2 in. long. Flower-buds conical, pointed, plump, free, singly on very short 



