160 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 
nearly always with unfavorable results. The variety grows well only in 
comparatively warm climates and on light, warm, limy soils, and refuses 
to ripen its crop in any others. There are occasional places in eastern 
America where Easter Beurré can be well grown, but for most part it is at 
home only on the Pacific slope. The fruits are of first rate excellence when 
at their best, and add much to the winter supply of pears, the product of 
few other winter pears surpassing that of this sort from January to March 
in regions where it does well. The pears are excellent shippers, keep well 
in common or cold storage, so that where the variety succeeds it is valuable 
for home, and distant and foreign markets. The trees are in every way 
satisfactory except that they bloom a little earlier than other sorts, and are 
somewhat more susceptible to the scab fungus in both fruit and foliage than 
a commercial variety should be. Although a little too susceptible to blight, 
the trees are above the average in immunity, and are hardy, vigorous, and 
productive. The variety is well worth planting in soils and climates where 
the crop matures properly. 
In the gardens of the Capucin Monastery at Louvain, Belgium, there 
was, about 1823, an old pear tree known to the monks as the Pastorale de 
Louvain, which attracted the attention of Van Mons. He propagated the 
pear and in due course distributed it. By the year 1853, it was to be found 
pretty generally in the gardens of Belgium under the name of Pastorale. 
Since that time it has been very widely disseminated, but unfortunately has 
received a confusing variety of names, Leroy mentioning twenty-four and 
Mathieu fifty-five. The leading authorities, however, of England and this 
country have uniformly adopted the name Easter Beurré. It was received 
in the former country soon after its first dissemination, and it was brought 
to this country not later than 1837. Since 1862, Easter Beurré has appeared 
in the list of pears recommended for general cultivation by the American 
Pomological Society. : 
Tree medium in size, vigorous, upright-spreading, open-topped, slow-growing, hardy; 
branches reddish-brown overspread with gray scarf-skin, sprinkled with inconspicuous 
lenticels; branchlets variable in length, with short internodes, greenish-brown mingled 
with red, rough, glabrous, with small, round, raised lenticels. 
Leaf-buds small, very short, obtuse, free. Leaves 2} in. long, 14 in. wide, thin; apex 
abruptly pointed; margin finely serrate, the teeth very short, tipped with red; petiole 2 in. 
long, slender. Flower-buds small, short, conical, plump, free, singly on short spurs; 
flowers 1} in. across, occasionally tinged with pink in the bud, becoming white when open, 
well distributed, average 9 buds in a cluster; pedicels ? in. long, slender, pubescent. 
