THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 49 
immense blight-proof tree. No doubt the variety could still be found in 
this part of the Mississippi valley. One wishes that the American-born 
descendants and the conquerers of these early settlers from Normandy 
were as energetic in forwarding horticulture as the first settlers. After 
the invasion of the English and later the Americans, there is little evidence 
of progress in horticulture in this region, until the early years of the nine- 
teenth century. 
Another famous pear-tree of the Middle West is worthy of notice as 
an evidence of early interest in horticulture. This tree, known as the 
Ockletree pear, from the name of its owner, has acquired fame as the largest 
pear-tree of which there is record. The tree was a seedling brought from 
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1804, and was planted in an orchard at Vin- 
cennes, Indiana. It bore a number of record-breaking crops, the largest of 
which was 140 bushels of pears borne in 1837. In 1855, the trunk measured 
ten and one-half feet in circumference at the smallest place below the limbs; 
the top was estimated to have a spread of 75 feet. The tree gained its 
great port and productiveness from spread of branch rather than height, 
which was estimated to be only 65 feet. The variety was unknown, but 
the fruit was said to be somewhat inferior in quality. This monarch of 
its species was struck by a tornado in 1867 which stripped off its branches 
and caused the death of the tree a few years later. 
Another living monument marked the beginnings of pear-culture in 
America until 1866, when the trunk, little more than a shell, was broken 
down by a dray, having furnished shade and shelter in a New York garden 
for 220 years. This garden was laid out by the redoubtable Peter Stuyvesant 
who took the reins of government in New Amsterdam in 1647, at which 
time this pear-tree was planted. The pear was a Summer Bon Chrétien, 
said to have been imported from Holland in a tub. Stuyvesant’s garden, 
kept in a high state of cultivation by forty or fifty negro slaves, was called 
the ‘‘ Bouwery,’”’ now the Bowery, and the pear-tree in it stood at what 
is now the corner of Third Avenue and Thirteenth Street. No doubt 
other pears were imported from Holland at the same time, and from these 
and seeds and sprouts, this fruit was started in the Dutch settlements up 
and down the Hudson, where the pear even to this day is a favorite fruit, 
finding here a more congenial soil and climate than in any other part of 
America. 
Soon after Governor Stuyvesant planted his bowery of fruits, flowers, 
and vegetables, the French laid out orchards in the vicinity of New York 
4 
