214 THE CULTIVATION OF THE 



blossom of one tree has been fertilized by the blossom 

 of another tree, and the blossom of the producing tree, 

 maturing a pear which shall contain a seed, and which 

 seed, planted, shall produce a pear like neither of the 

 trees which took part in its creation. In fact, the 

 product will be a hybrid, a mule among pears. 



The Kieffer is a good example of a hybrid pear, 

 and is supposed to be a cross between the Chinese Sand 

 Pear, and a Bartlett grown near it in the garden of 

 Peter Kieffer, of Philadelphia, where the original Kieffer 

 tree is still standing, and is now eighteen years old. 

 The best specimen of a Chinese Sand Pear tree that I 

 know of, is in the grounds of Thomas Holcomb, Esquire, 

 the efificient Recorder of Deeds of New Castle County, 

 Delaware, and can be seen in the lawn surrounding his 

 residence in the city of New Castle. The pear is among 

 the oldest of our fruit trees on the Peninsula, and 

 specimen trees are now standing, over a century old, 

 and trees were, undoubtedly, planted soon after their 

 arrival, by the French Huguenots, who came over and 

 settled here after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes 

 in 1685. Now, as to how long pear growing for profit 

 in field culture has been conducted on the Peninsula, 

 two decades, or at most three decades, of the past, will, 

 I have no doubt, cover the time, and how successful it 

 has been or with what discouragements it has been 

 attended, will be shown, in part, by the answers to the 



