10 



THE PEAR 



THE PEAR 



gions, where its usefulness is also much cur- 

 tailed by its susceptibility to pear-blight. 

 Crab-apple trees are used in cold climates as 

 stocks upon which to graft the common apple, 

 for which purpose they are in most respects 

 very desirable. 



Some twenty or more oriental flowering 

 crab-apples are listed in the botanies, several 

 of which produce edible fruit, and two of 

 which, P. prunijolia, Willd. and P. Sieboldii, 

 Regel, have been more or less cultivated for 

 their fruits and used as stocks for the common 

 apple in China and Japan. Some of these 

 Asiatic crab-apples are promising, also, for 

 hybridization with the common apple and the 

 Siberian crab. 



Five types of native crab-apples grow in 

 North America. None of these has sufficient 

 merit to recommend it to pomologists in 

 regions where the common apple grows, but 

 one, the Soulard crab, P. Soulardii, Bailey, 

 probably a natural hybrid between P. Mains 

 and P. ioensis is grown in the upper Missis- 

 sippi Valley where only trees of great hardiness 

 withstand the cold. A typical variety of this 

 species is described as the Soulard crab by 

 botanists. There is some promise of further 

 amalgamation of the common apple and the 

 native crab-apple to secure greater hardiness 

 of tree and longer keeping qualities in the 

 fruit. 



THE PEAB 



The innumerable varieties of pears, more 

 than 4000, almost all come from a single 

 species, P. communis. A second species, P. 

 serotina, the Chinese Sand pear, furnishes per- 

 haps a score of named sorts with showy fruits 

 which keep well, but are scarcely edible un- 

 cooked and of very indifferent quality in 

 culinary preparations. This species, however, 

 has added much to the pear flora of the world; 

 for, when hybridized with the common pear, 

 a plant is produced of remarkable vigor, clean 

 in growth, productive, hardy, and almost im- 

 mune to the dreaded pear-blight, which yields 

 a fruit suitable for culinary purposes and 

 edible out of hand, if properly ripened. The 

 well-known Kieffer is typical of these hybrids. 

 A third species, P. nivalis, the Snow pear, is 

 grown sparingly in parts of Europe for the 

 making of pear cider, but is not of sufficient 

 importance to warrant discussion in a pom- 

 ological text. 



3. Pyrus communis, Linn. Common Pear. A vig- 

 orous, upright tree attaining a height of 80 feet and 

 a diameter of 4 feet, usually with an oblong or pyramidal 

 and rather compact top ; bark on old trees rough with 

 rather large persistent scales. Leaves 2-4 inches long, 

 1-2 inches wide, oblong-ovate, thin, hard and veiny ; 

 upper surface dark green, glabrous ; lower surface light 

 green, glabrous ; apex acuminate ; margin, crenate- 

 serrate or entire, never setose-serrate ; petiole 1 to 2 

 inches long, becoming glabrous. Flowers 1-2 inches 

 across, white, appearing with the leaves, borne in 4-12 

 umbel-like clusters on slender pedicels ; calyx persistent 

 or rarely deciduous ; stamens 15-20. Fruit exceedingly 

 variable under cultivation, usually pyrifonn, sometimes 

 round-conic, turbinate or occasionally round-oblate ; 

 green, yellow, red or russet, or combinations of these 

 colors; flesh of fruits ripening on the tree with few 



or many grit-cells. Seeds 1-3 in a cell, sometimes 

 abortive or wanting, large, brown or brownish, often 

 tufted at the tips. 



Botanists describe several botanical varieties, 

 and some would separate from the species a 

 number of garden forms. In the present state 

 of botanical knowledge of the species, however, 

 the pomologist may best classify pomological 

 varieties under the type species. 



Pyrus communis now grows naturally in all 

 but the coldest and warmest parts of Europe 

 and Asia. It probably came originally from 

 the Caucasian countries and northern Persia, 

 where, in elevated regions, there are now for- 

 ests of wild pears; or, possibly, the original 

 center of distribution was in Cashmere and the 

 northwestern Himalayas where there are also 

 pear forests. The tree grows spontaneously 

 as an escape from orchards in nearly all re- 

 gions where the pear is generally cultivated, 

 but sparingly in North America, because kept 

 down by pear-blight. 



The common pear has been cultivated from 

 time immemorial. The ancient Greeks had 

 several varieties; Pliny, the Roman naturalist, 

 describes forty-one varieties. The pear is men- 

 tioned in France, Germany and Great Britain 

 almost with the first written records of agri- 

 culture, and it came to America with the 

 earliest permanent settlers in the northern 

 states. The French brought the pear to Can- 

 ada and Michigan, and pear-trees said to be 

 two hundred years old are yet standing about 

 mission sites of the French along the St. 

 Lawrence and the Great Lakes to Detroit, 

 Michigan. The pear is now grown in the 

 temperate regions of the whole civilized world, 

 not so commonly planted as the apple only 

 because less easily managed in the orchard, 

 less adaptable to soils and climates, and more 

 susceptible to pests, especially the pear-blight, 

 which takes prodigious toll from this fruit in 

 the pear-regions of the New World. 



In North America, pears thrive particularly 

 well only in the states north of Maryland and 

 west to Wisconsin and in the Pacific states. 

 The climate of the southern states is uncon- 

 genial to this fruit, being too hot, while that 

 of the Mississippi Valley and Great Plains is 

 too hot in the summer and too cold in the 

 winter. Blight, also, is more virulent in these 

 regions than in those first named, and makes 

 pear-culture precarious even where climate 

 favors. California and New York are the lead- 

 ing pear-growing states, in both of which re- 

 gions the pear industry is handicapped by 

 blight. 



Pear-growing began in America as an avoca- 

 tion for men of means, leisure, and taste. Its 

 period of greatest activity began early in the 

 nineteenth century and passed before the close 

 of the century, during most of which time 

 the pear was the center of interest in American 

 fruit circles. In the first half of the last cen- 

 tury many new varieties of pears were intro- 

 duced from Europe, and a considerable number 

 originated on this side of the Atlantic. In 

 1859, T. W. Field, in his Pear Culture, gave a 



