THE APPLE, PEAK, AND QUINCE. 169 



ancient pears of Oriental origin were superior to any he 

 had tested in Germany. 



These ancient good pears of central Asia seem to have 

 been extended east of the Ural range, as the late Charles 

 Gil >b of Abbottsf ord, Canada, a month prior to his death 

 in Cairo, Egypt, spent a few days in Mongolia. He wrote 

 from thence to the writer, stating that he was surprised to 

 find pears of large size and excellent melting, juicy quality 

 grown on very large and old trees. All of the varieties 

 had snow-white flesh, and it was claimed that they very 

 nearly came true from seed. He enclosed a few seeds from 

 which we have grown trees now in bearing. They differ 

 some in season and size of fruit, but all have tender, 

 melting, white flesh as good in quality as the Mongolian 

 snow. The variety we have named Gibb bore quite a 

 full crop last year in Ames, and at this writing it is laden 

 with young fruit, when the tree has a diameter of stem of 

 only two inches, four years after the planting of a one- 

 }^ear-old tree. It is of the size of Bartlett, pyriform in 

 shape, and nearly equal to the Bartlett in quality. 



Without doubt this snow-pear race of north central 

 Asia has had much to do with the development of the 

 Russian pears, extensively grown on the bluffs of the Volga 

 in Russia, by crossing with the indigenous species. Several 

 of the Russian pears now growing in the Western States 

 have the close-textured, shining, sharply serrated leaves 

 of the Oriental snow-pears and also their white flesh. But 

 not one of them yet tested is as good in quality for dessert 

 use as the snow-pears of Mongolia. The largest tree of 

 any kind seen by the writer on the Volga, from the 57th 

 parallel south to the Caspian Sea, was a pear-tree of this 

 Oriental type on the bluffs of the Volga on the 56th 

 parallel of north latitude. 



What is known to botanists as snow-pear (Pyrtis nivalis), 



