36o 



The Pyramids of Egypt. 



pear, and this in combination with a very fertile soil propitious to the 

 strong growth of trees. 



Two of these undated pear-trees stand upon the farm of Samuel Squires, 

 near Nameoki Station, on the Terre Haute, Alton, and St. Louis Railway, in 

 Madison County. They have been known by their present owner for fifty- 

 six years ; and he estimates their age at between seventy and eighty years. 

 Calvin Knider, another old settler, states that he saw them in 1825, and 



that they then seemed about forty years of age ; thus varying little from 

 Mr. Squires's estimate. This carries the date of their planting back to 

 about the year 1785, or about fifteen years before the first American pio- 

 neers settled in the country. They are, therefore, probably of French origin. 

 The fruit of one tree is small and worthless : that of the other resembles 

 the Bartlett in outline and color, ripens in August, is only good in quality, 

 and quite productive. I enclose an outline taken from a ripe specimen on 

 the 2 2d of August. The trees stand in an open field, and, though showing 



