148 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 
first president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. In 1831, 
General Dearborn first exhibited fruit of the variety at the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society where it was named Dearborn’s Seedling in honor of 
the originator. This variety should not be confused with a pear raised by 
Van Mons of Belgium and named by him Dearborn. The Dearborn of 
Van Mons is larger and ripens later than the American Dearborn, and was 
long since taken from lists of pears recommended for cultivation in America. 
Dearborn was included in the American Pomological Society’s first fruit- 
catalog in 1848, where it was called Dearborn’s Seedling. In 1883, the 
Society shortened the name to Dearborn. Since 1891, the name has failed 
to appear in the catalogs of this Society. 
Tree large, vigorous, spreading, tall, very productive; trunk stocky; branches thick, 
zigzag, reddish-brown partly covered with a heavy, gray scarf-skin, marked by many red- 
dish-brown lenticels; branchlets slender, very long, with long internodes, older wood brown, 
new growth greenish, nearly covered with reddish-brown, mottled with ash-gray scarf- 
skin, smooth, glabrous becoming pubescent near the tips of the new growth, with numerous 
small, brownish, round, raised, conspicuous lenticels. 
Leaf-buds very srhall, short, pointed, plump, free. Leaves 3 in. long, 13 in. wide, 
thin; apex obtusely-pointed; margin with very fine dark tips, finely and shallowly serrate; 
petiole tinged red, 12 in. long, glabrous. Flower-buds small, short, conical, plump, free, 
arranged singly on short spurs; flowers showy, 1} in. across, in dense clusters, 9 or 10 buds 
in a cluster; pedicels # in. long, pubescent. 
Fruit ripe in late August; small, 2 in. long, 2} in. wide, uniform, roundish-pyriform, 
with a slight neck, symmetrical, uniform; stem 1 in. long, slender; cavity obtuse, shallow, 
narrow, thinly russeted, often slightly lipped; calyx open, large; lobes separated at the base, 
narrow, acuminate; basin very shallow, obtuse, gently furrowed and wrinkled, symmetrical; 
skin thick, very tough, smooth, dull; color pale yellow, with russet specks; dots numerous, 
small, russet, conspicuous; flesh white, slightly granular at the center, tender and melting, 
Dearborn’s portrait was chosen for the frontispiece. He was early interested in experimental gardens and 
rural cemeteries. The plans for experimental gardens advocated by him were never fully carried out, 
but no doubt his enthusiasm for such gardens, with his own garden as a model, did much to stimulate the 
planting in America in the early half of the nineteenth century of the many famous gardens which adorned 
and enriched every center of culture along the Atlantic seaboard. He helped to establish the Mount 
Auburn and Forest Hills cemeteries, famous among Boston cemeteries, and the first of rural cemeteries in 
this country. His life-long devotion to rural art as exemplified in gardens and cemeteries knew no bounds. 
On these subjects and on pomology he contributed many articles to the agricultural and horticultural 
papers of his time. Few men, it can be said, could better concentrate their thoughts and feelings on paper 
than he seems to have done. Besides the many papers from his own pen he published several translated 
treatises from the French, chief of which was a monograph on the Camellia in 1838 and another on Morus 
multicaulis in 1830, the ‘‘ Mulberry Craze’ being in full swing at this time. General Dearborn was an 
ardent pear-grower and helped to test the hundreds of seedlings then being brought from Belgium and 
France and grew as well considerable numbers from his own seed-beds, Of all his seedlings, however, only 
Dearborn survives. 
