1898.] ESSAYS. 61 



its opinion, but other people have their ideas, and it is as I said 

 before, entirely a question of taste. I will take you into my 

 confidence to this extent — the ten which I am cultivatinij are 

 the Rostiezer, Clapp's Favorite, Bartlett, Seckel, Sheldon, An- 

 jou, Cornice, Lawrence, Bosc, and Dana's Hovey. Somebody, 

 perhaps, may drop one of those and put in Frederick Clapp, 

 and some one else may drop another and put in something else, 

 and so on. But I will say that I grow the Rostiezer and the 

 Clapp's Favorite only because they are the two best pears on an 

 average that get ripe before the Bartlett. The Bartlett, Bosc, 

 Sheldon, Anjou and Lawrence, because of their quality, and the 

 Comice I grow because it is a hard pear to grow and of the best 

 quality when you get it; indeed, its quality is unsurpassed by 

 that of any other pear. That is my taste ; another man may not 

 think so, but all will agree that it is of the very first quality, 

 even if they do not care to grow it. 



Another thing that I would say before I drop the subject of 

 pear culture is that there are very few of these varieties which 

 I have mentioned that are of recent production or origin. The 

 Dana's Hovey and the Frederick Clapp are the only pears which 

 I have mentioned here that we did not raise iifty or sixty years 

 ago ; so there are only two varieties that we have got in the last 

 thirty or forty years. Occasionally a new variety flashes upon 

 our attention and we hear a great deal about it at the time, as 

 for instance, the Idaho, which was heralded all over the country 

 as the "coming pear." It was a great pear; it was coming to 

 till a place and a want that had never been occupied before ; it 

 was going to stand at the head of the list. Now we havp tried 

 it in New England, and whatever it may be in the South or in 

 the West, I can say that here I have never seen any specimens 

 of it that were over third-class ; I have never seen any I would 

 call second-class ; therefore the beginner in pear culture had bet- 

 ter try some of the standard varieties that have been grown for 

 thirty or forty years, rather than to take some of the new varie- 

 ties which are heralded with so much noise by tree agents. 



