130 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 



The varieties of pears were even more numerous than of 

 apples. Gerard says he knew someone who grew " at the point 

 of three score sundrie sorts of Peares, and those exceeding good ; 

 not doubting but if his minde had beene to seeke after multi- 

 tudes he might have gotten togither the like number of those 

 worse kindes ... to describe each pear apart, were to send an 

 owle to Athens, or to number those things that are without 

 number." The eight varieties he figures are the following : 

 "the Jenetting, Saint James, Royall,Burgomot, Quince, Bishop, 

 Katherine, and the Winter Peare." The Katherine pear was a 

 popular variety, " known to all," as these lines in " A Ballad 

 upon a Wedding," by Sir John Suckling (1609-41) testify : 



" Her cheek so rare a white was on. 

 No daisy makes comparison ; 

 Who sees them is undone ; 

 For streaks of red were mingled there, 

 Such as are on a Catherine pear, 

 The side that's next the sun." 



The various kinds of " Bon Cretien " were among the best 

 grown. One sort Parkinson mentions as the ten-pound pear, 

 or " Bon Cretien " of Syon, " so called because the grafts cost 

 the master so much the fetching by the messenger's expenses, 

 when he brought nothing else." The same pears did not suit 

 all counties alike ; some kinds were more grown in one part 

 than another — as, for instance, the Arundell and the Robert, 

 which were specially plentiful in Norfolk and Suffolk. Wardens 

 were still reckoned among the best cooking pears. Parkinson 

 notes " the pear of Jerusalem being baked it is as red as the 

 best Warden, whereof Master William Ward, of Essex, assured 

 me, who is the chief keeper of the King's granary at Whitehall." 

 A glance down Parkinson's list, containing some sixty-five 

 sorts, some of which are quoted already, shows several names 

 still familiar in the nineteenth century, such as Bon Chretien, 

 Bergamot, Windsor, and " Pear Gergonell." Several varieties 

 of pears are noted by Lyte in the copy of Dodoen's Herbal, 

 now in the British Museum, annotated by him, and marked 

 with the alterations he intended to make in his translation. 

 A list of names of pears in his handwriting is also preserved 

 by his descendants, which shows how much attention he gave 



