146 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 
DANA HOVEY 
1. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 48. 1891. 
Dana's No. 16. 2. Mag. Hort. 19:541. 1853. 3. Ibid. 20:136. 1854. 
Dana's Hovey. 4. Mag. Hort. 25:202, fig. 10. 1859. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 68. 1862. 6. Gard. 
Chron. 1191, fig. 1866. 7. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 730. 1869. 8. Hogg Fruit Man. 556. 1884. 
9. Garden 49:226. 1896. 
Danas Hovey. 10. Gard. Chron. 3rd Ser. 47:67, fig. 39. 1910. 
Dana Hovey is a delicious little dessert pear, so juicy, sweet, and rich 
that it is a veritable sweetmeat. The fruits are so similar to those of 
Seckel that the variety is sometimes called ‘‘ Winter Seckel.”” Dana Hovey 
is one of the best pears to succeed Seckel. The fruits come in season about 
the middle of November and keep six weeks in ordinary storage. The 
flavor is that of Winter Nelis with a smack of Seckel. If the fruits are picked 
early and kept in a dry, cool place they ripen early in December with a rich, 
golden color strewn with russet. It is in the same class with Seckel as to 
size of fruit, although the pears average larger and are more uniform in 
size from different trees and in different seasons. The pears are also more 
brightly colored than those of Seckel. Superiority in size and color makes 
the fruits of this variety much more attractive than those of the better- 
known Seckel. The trees are hardy, vigorous, and thrive on various soils 
but are only moderately productive and are somewhat susceptible to blight, 
falling far short of those of Seckel in these characters, for which reason 
the last-named variety is the better for commercial plantations. Dana 
Hovey is one of few winter pears with fruits of high quality, and thus is 
very desirable for home plantations and ought to have value in commercial 
plantations. 
Francis Dana, Roxbury, Massachusetts, was an indefatigable raiser 
of new fruits, there being no fewer than sixteen varieties of pears with the 
prefix “‘Dana’s,”’ of which the one under notice is the best of all. It was 
introduced to the public about 1854 under the name of Dana’s Hovey in 
honor of C. M. Hovey, the well-known nurseryman of Boston and author of 
The Fruits of America. Dana Hovey is so similar to Seckel that the latter 
is supposed to be one of its parents. The variety was added to the American 
Pomological Society’s fruit-list in 1862. 
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, rapid-growing, productive; trunk stocky; 
branches reddish-brown mingled with green which is almost completely overspread with 
gray scarf-skin, marked by few small lenticels; branchlets thick, short, light brown mingled 
with green, marked with ash-gray at the tips, smooth, glabrous, with small, scattering, 
slightly raised lenticels, 
