THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 17 
La Quintinye, the most noted French pomologist of his time, in 1690 
listed 67 pear varieties. The Belgians probably had all of these. What 
were they? Most of them were old sorts— some were centuries old. 
All, so far as their histories show, originated by chance in garden, orchard, 
hedge row, and forest. No one seems yet to have planted seed with a 
view of obtaining new and better pears. Camerarius in 1694 had made 
known the fact of sex in plants. Soon after, experiments in hybridization 
began, but no one as yet had hybridized pears. Lastly, nearly all pears, 
before the Belgians began to improve them, were crisp or breaking in flesh, 
the crevers of the French, while the soft-fleshed, melting pears, the beurrés 
of the French, were as yet hardly known. Now, mostly owing to the 
work of the Belgians, the buttery pears predominate. 
Of the means by which Hardenpont obtained his superior pears, there 
is no precise knowledge. Whether his new sorts were lucky chances out 
of a large number of promiscuous seedlings, or whether he was a pioneer 
in hybridizing can never be known. Du Mortier, a distinguished Belgian 
botanist, gives the credit of hybridization to the Abbé, basing his opinion 
on the fact that the characters of most of Hardenpont’s varieties are plainly 
a commingling of two well-known parents which could hardly be the case 
if they were happy chances were fate ever so kindly disposed. 
Hardenpont soon had many imitators in Belgium. Indeed, the 
Belgians seem to have been quite carried off their feet by pear-breeding, 
and during the first half of the nineteenth century a fad like the “ tulip 
craze’’ of Holland and the “‘ mulberry craze’’ of America reigned in the 
country. Among the breeders are found the names of priests, physicians, 
scientists, apothecaries, attorneys, tradesmen, and gentlemen of leisure. 
The introduction of new varieties made notable in horticulture the towns 
of Mons, Tournaii, Enghien, Louvain, Malines, and Brussels. The 
awarding of medals for new pears produced the horticultural sensations 
of the times. Hundreds if not thousands of new varieties were introduced, 
of which many, it is true, have proved worthless, others of but secondary 
merit, while still others, as we shall find, are even now among the best 
pears under cultivation. But the great fact, be it remembered, is that 
these amateur pear-breeders wrought in a few years a complete transforma- 
tion in a fruit that had been domesticated and had been fairly stable for 
over 2000 years. ' 
A few names besides Hardenpont stand out prominently and must be 
mentioned. Of these, Van Mons is best known. Jean Baptiste Van Mons, 
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