THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 53 
of European varieties of fruits became an important part of the nursery 
business. The importation of pears became an obsession with Manning, 
his nursery alone importing several hundred varieties. Manning’s work 
must have a more extended notice. 
In 1823, Robert Manning established a pomological garden at Salem, 
Massachusetts, to collect and test as many varieties of fruits as he could 
obtain, native and foreign, with the intention of propagating and distributing 
those which proved most worthy. In furthering this great. project he 
entered into correspondence with the leading pomologists of Europe, and 
from them secured trees and cions, which, with native sorts, brought his 
collection up to 2000 varieties of fruits at the time of his death in 1842. 
More than half of the varieties planted by Manning were pears. This, it 
will be remembered, was the period in which Belgian, French, and English 
pomologists were making pears a specialty, and led by Van Mons, the 
Belgian scientist, had succeeded in putting almost a new pear flora in the 
hands of fruit-growers. Manning grew in America nearly all of Van Mons’ 
introductions, received direct from the originator, and many acquisitions 
from other European pomologists as well, notably many varieties from 
Robert Thompson of the London Horticultural Society. Manning was 
one of the most careful observers amongst American pomologists, and to 
him pear-growers are indebted for the first full and accurate descriptions of 
the fruits grown in his time in thiscountry. These were published in 1838 
in his Book of Fruits. American pomologies before and many since were 
compilations. Manning made his descriptions first-hand and described no 
fruit ‘‘ not actually identified beyond a reasonable doubt of its genuineness.” 
After Manning, one might well scan the work of several eminent 
American pomologists who made pears a specialty. Robert Manning, Jr., 
continued the work of his father with this fruit and the two Downings, 
Wilder, Barry, and Thomson found the pear the most interesting of the 
fruits which they grew. To all of these men, pomologists are indebted 
for the introduction of many new and choice pears; for the identification 
of varieties; for the correction of the nomenclature of this fruit; for testing 
hundreds of seedlings and native and foreign varieties; and for the 
distribution of pears throughout the whole country. 
A history of the pear in America requires some mention of its intro- 
duction in the Pacific states since that region is now the greatest center 
of the pear industry in the country, and the home of several notable varieties. 
Franciscan monks established missions in California at about the time the 
