CHAPTER II. 



THE PEAR. 



"If the long period of nearly ten months,*' 

 says General Dearborn, " during which the 

 numerous most admired varieties of the pear 

 are successfully matured for our tables, is 

 taken into consideration, with the diversity of 

 graceful forms, beauty of color, agreeable 

 aroma and delicious flavor of many of them, 

 it may, with propriety, be placed at the head 

 of the list of fruits, in all the states where 

 the orange cannot be cultivated." 



The pear is the favorite fruit of the more 

 intelligent and scientific cultivators of the 

 present century, and its finer qualities have 

 in consequence been wonderfully developed 

 within the last sixty or seventy years. But 

 the passion for new varieties amounting al- 

 most to a mania with some distinguished hor- 

 ticulturists has retarded rather than accele- 



