THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 229 



trees. Except in susceptibility to scab, the trees are nearly perfect when 

 grown in the soil which they prefer — a rich clay, heavy rather than light. 

 On such a soil, tree and fruit attain perfection. The accompanying illus- 

 tration shows this pear at its best in color and size — a handsome fruit 

 rather than the unattractive product so often seen. Grown in a light soil, 

 and when scab is unchecked, the fruits are small, green, cracked, and 

 cankered — intolerable to sight and taste. Unfortunately, also, the trees 

 are ravaged by blight when that disease is epidemic. The faults named 

 have made the variety an outcast, but it should still receive atten- 

 tion for the superb quality of its fruits where scab and blight can be 

 controlled. 



This pear is one of the oldest of all varieties. It is impossible to state 

 whether it originated in France or was brought to that country from Italy. 

 A German, Henri Manger, who studied the origin of fruits, states in his 

 Systematische Pomologie, 1780, that the White Doyenne originated with 

 the Romans; he considered it to be their Sementinum . Agostino Gallo, 

 1559, called the variety Pera Ghiaccinola. In 1660, Claude Saint-Etienne 

 described a Poire de Neige. Both of these descriptions represent White 

 Doyenne. In the sixteenth century and for part of the seventeenth, the 

 name Ghiacchwla was accepted for the variety in France with the synonym 

 Saint-Michel. Leroy states that Le Lectier, in his catalog of the fruit 

 trees which he grew at Orleans in 1628, changed the name to Giaccole de 

 Rome, and Nicholas de Bonnefonds modified it in the first edition of his 

 Jardinier Francais, 1652, to Giacciola di Roma. English pomologists have 

 mentioned this pear under a variety of names since early in the seventeenth 

 century. The names Poire Doyenne and White Doyenne have been most 

 generally applied to it. The date of its introduction to America is not 

 known, but it was probably brought to this country by the earliest French 

 settlers. The first American catalogs mentioned the variety, and it was 

 extensively grown in the vicinity of New York and Long Island where 

 it was commonly called the Virgalieu pear. In the neighborhood of Boston, 

 the name Saint-Michael was applied to it; while around Philadelphia it 

 was called the Butter Pear. For nearly a century, however, the variety 

 has been most generally known in this country as White Doyenne. At 

 the Convention of Fruit-Growers held in New York, in 1848, White 

 Doyenne was included in a short list of pears recommended for general 

 cultivation. Since that date, the American Pomological Society has given 

 the variety a place in its fruit-catalog. 



