20 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 
and southern Germany, and along the upper Rhine, but the people of 
these regions seem to have been followers rather than leaders in developing 
this fruit, having produced almost no meritorious varieties. America is 
indebted to the vast region of central and western Europe for but one 
major variety, the Forelle, and this sort is of little importance. 
Pomology, the world over, however, is indebted to Germany for much 
valuable pomological literature. Cordus, Mayer, Christ, Diel, Dittrich, 
Truchsess, Hinkert, Dochnahl, Oberdieck, Engelbrecht, Lauche, and 
Gaucher, all Germans, and Kraft, an Austrian, have been industrious 
compilers, and have given pomology some of its best texts on systematic 
pomology. 
Cordus, earliest German pomological writer, wrote an illuminating 
chapter in the history of the pear, which must be reproduced. Valerius 
Cordus, 1515-1544, a botanical genius, made botanical expeditions to nearly 
every part of Germany, in the course of which he made special study of 
the apple and the pear. He described fifty pears and thirty-one apples. 
These descriptions are noteworthy as the earliest for these fruits in Ger- 
many. Cordus is called by one great botanist, ‘‘ the inventor of the art of 
describing plants;’’ by another, he is said to have been “‘first to teach 
men to cease from dependence on the poor descriptions of the ancients 
and to describe plants anew from nature;’’ a third botanical authority 
says of him, ‘‘the first of all men to excel in plant description;’’ while a 
fourth writes of the four books of his Historia Plantarum “truly extraor- 
dinary because of the accuracy with which the plants are described.” 
Thus, botanists accord him special distinction, but pomologists seem not 
to know this resplendent systemist of the sixteenth century, who, as we 
shall see, is especially deserving of pomological recognition. 
Cordus is entitled to honor in the history of pomology as first to print 
descriptions of fruits for the purpose of identifying varieties. No doubt 
as soon as the earth ceased to furnish spontaneously the primitive luxury 
of ready-to-eat food in the shape of fruit, making culture necessary, varieties 
were acquired and became commodities as they are today. Varieties were 
certain to originate under cultivation, and their value was certain to be 
recognized by our first ancestors, to whom the convenience, necessity, and 
expediency of having a diversity of kinds of any fruit as well as of a means 
of keeping them true to kind, must have been apparent at the beginning 
of fruit culture. That such was the case, the most ancient sacred and 
profane writings assure us. Varieties of the fig, olive, grape, and other 
