150 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



" There is no fruit growing in this land that is of so many 

 excellent uses as this." 



The varieties of pears were even more numerous than of apples. 

 Gerard says he knew someone who grew " at the point of three 

 score sundrie sorts of Peares, and those exceeding good ; not 

 doubting but if his minde had beene to seeke after multitudes he 

 might have gotten togither the like number of those w r orse kindes 

 ... to describe each pear apart, were to send an owle to Athens, 

 or to number those things that are without number." The 

 eight varieties he figures are the following : " the Jennetting, Saint 

 James, Royall, Burgomot, Quince, Bishop, Katherine, and the 

 Winter Peare." The Katherine pear was a popular variety, 

 " known to all," as these lines in " A Ballad upon a Wedding,"" 

 by Sir John Suckling (1609-1641), testify: 



" Her cheek so rare a white was on, 



No daisy makes comparison ; 

 Who sees them is undone ; 



For streaks of red were mingled there, 



Such as are on a Catherine pear, 

 The side that's next the sun." 



The various kinds of " Bon Cretien " were among the best 

 grown. One sort Parkinson mentions as the ten-pound pear or 

 " Bon Cretien " of Syon, " so called because the grafts cost the 

 master so much the fetching by the messenger's expenses, when 

 he brought nothing else." The same pears did not suit all 

 counties alike, some kinds were more grown in one part than 

 another ; as for instance, the Arundell and the Robert, which 

 were specially plentiful in Norfolk and Suffolk. Wardens were 

 still reckoned amongst the best cooking pears. Parkinson 

 notes " the pear of Jerusalem being baked it is as red as the 

 best Warden, whereof Master William Ward, of Essex, assured 

 me, who is the chief keeper of the King's granary at White- 

 hall." A glance down Parkinson's list, containing some sixty- 

 five sorts, some of which are quoted already, shows several 

 names still familiar in the nineteenth century, such as Bon 

 Chretien, Bergamot, Windsor, and " Pear Gergonell." Several 

 varieties of pears are noted by Lyte in the copy of Dodoens's 

 Herbal, now in the British Museum, annotated by him, and 

 marked with the alterations he intended to make in his. 



