

" The Seckle pear is so named from Mr. Seckle, of 

 Philadelphia, who has the credit of having first culti- 

 vated it in the vicinity of that city. It is generally 

 considered to be a native fruit of this country, acci- 

 dentally produced from seed sown by Mr. Seckle, and 

 the original tree is said to be still standing on the es- 

 tate of that gentleman. An account, however, essen- 

 tially different from this, has been lately communica- 

 ted to me by my friend judge Wallace, of Burlington, 

 to whom I recently paid a visit. He stated to mo, 

 on the authority of a correspondent in Philadelphia, 

 that the pear was grown in that neighbourhood, sixty 

 years ago, by a person named Jacob Weiss, who ob- 

 tained the tree, with many others, at a settlement of 

 Swedes, which was early established near Philadel- 

 phia, where Mr. Weiss had built a house. The judge 

 suggested the probability of Mr. Weiss and the father 

 or grandfather of Mr. Seckle having been intimate., as 

 both families were German, and of that rank in socie- 

 ty. which might be likely to lead to such an acquaint- 

 ance. The conjecture therefore, is, that under such 

 circumstances, Mr. Seckle's family obtained grafts 

 from Mr. Weiss's tree. 



"Mr. Coxe, in his view of the cultivation of fruit 

 trees in America, an interesting volume, which I have 

 forwarded to the society, after assigning the same ori- 

 gin as 1 have stated in the beginning 1 of the letter,. 

 describes the, fruit thus : 'The form and appearance 

 vary with aspect, age and cultivation : the size gen- 

 erally is small : the form regular, round at the blos- 

 som end, diminishing with a gentle oval towards the 

 stem, which is rather short and thick : the skin is 

 sometimes yellow, with a bright red cheek, and 

 smooth; at other times, a perfect rnsset, without any 

 blush : the flesh is melting, spicy, and most exquisite- 

 }y and delicately flavoured. The time of ripening is 

 from the end of August to the middle of October, 

 17 



