THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 3 
times. It is doubtful if it has been hybridized with P. communis, parent 
of nearly all cultivated pears. The Snow pear is not cultivated in America 
but is to be found in botanical collections. 
From Pyrus serotina came the Japanese, Chinese, or Sand pears of 
pomologists. The species is a native of central and eastern China and 
is found wild in Japan, but whether as a native or as an escape from cultiva- 
tion it is impossible to say. There are three botanical forms of the species 
and possibly a score of horticultural varieties cultivated for their fruits 
and as ornamentals. Of all the species of Pyrus found in western Asia, 
this, in the light of present knowledge, is most closely related to the common 
pear, with which it hybridizes freely. 
We have now discovered in what countries the progenitors of cultivated 
pears grow spontaneously, and are therefore ready to search for the first 
landmarks in the domestication of the three cultivated species. What. 
has ancient literature to say on the subject? We turn first to the Bible 
and find that the pear is not mentioned in sacred literature, and that, 
according to commentators on the Sanscrit and Hebrew languages, there 
is no name in the tongues of Biblical lands for the pear. Nor should we 
expect ancient notices of the pear in northwest India or Persia, for the 
pear does not flourish in hot countries. The survey next turns to ancient 
Greece where landmarks are at once sighted which must be put down as 
the earliest records of the pear, and as such deserve full consideration. 
THE PEAR IN ANCIENT GREECE 
In ancient Greece we find the first landmarks and begin the history 
of the pear as a cultivated plant. It is wrong, however, to assume that 
the beginning of the cultivation of the pear, or of any plant, was contempo- 
raneous with the writing of even the oldest books. Mention of a cultivated 
plant in a book is proof that its domestication antedates the writing of the 
book. It is not easy to imagine tribes of semi-civilized men in southern 
Europe and Asia who did not make use of the apples, pears, quinces, plums, 
cherries, almonds, olives, figs, pomegranates, and grapes which grew wild 
in this land of gardens and orchards, and who did not minister to their 
needs as husbandmen long before men wrote books. Names for orchard 
operations, as planting, grafting, and pruning, in the simplest dialects of 
primitive peoples, establish the fact that husbandry long antedates writ- 
ing, as would be expected from the greater need of the one than of the 
other. 
