38 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 
and peach and scarcely more than the cherry and plum. In Europe, it 
is a question if the pear is not more commonly grown than the apple, and 
is much more common than the plum and the peach, the last-named fruit 
being grown out of doors for most part only in southern Europe. Pears 
are more varied in size, shape, texture, and flavor of flesh than others of 
the hardy tree-fruits, and in length of season exceed all others excepting 
the apple. Varieties of pears, possibly, have the charm of individuality 
more marked than varieties of its orchard associates. The trees, where 
environment permits their culture, are not difficult to grow, and attain 
greater size, produce larger crops, and live longer than any other hardy 
fruit. Why, then, is the pear not more popular in America? Conditions 
of climate, pests, season of ripening, taste, and trade prevent the expansion 
of pear-culture on this side of the Atlantic. 
The climate in most parts of America is uncongenial to the pear. 
Pears from the European stock, to which most varieties grown in America 
belong, thrive only in relatively equable climates, and do not endure well 
the sudden and extreme variations in climate to which most parts of this 
continent are subject. Extremes of heat or cold, wetness or dryness, are 
fatal to the pear. In North America, therefore, commercial pear-culture 
is confined to favored localities on the Atlantic seaboard, about the Great 
Lakes, and on the Pacific slope. Even in these favored regions, pears 
sent to market come largely from the plantations of specialists. On the 
Atlantic seaboard, European pears are products of commerce only in 
southern New England and New York, westward through Ohio on the 
shores of Lake Erie, and in the southern lake regions of Michigan. Away 
from these bodies of water to the Pacific, varieties of European pears refuse 
to grow except with the utmost care in culture and selection of sites. On 
the Pacific slope, in the hardy-fruit regions, the pear reaches its highest 
development in the New World. Oriental pears, or varieties having 
Oriental blood, as Kieffer and Le Conte, are grown in every part of America 
where the culture of hardy fruits is attempted. 
Liability to loss by pests is a great detriment to the popularity of the 
pear in America. The insect pests of pears are numerous. Codling-moths 
attack the fruit wherever the pear is grown in America, and can be kept 
down only by expensive arsenical sprays. The psylla, while irregular in 
its outbreaks, is most damaging and hard to control when it appears. These 
are the chief insect enemies, but a dozen others take more or less toll from 
tree or fruit. Foliage and fruit are attacked by several parasitic fungi, 
