162 THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 
prove worthy of cultivation. No. 154 of these, Mr. Manning! named 
Elizabeth (Van Mons). Later on it was disseminated as Manning's 
Elizabeth, and soon after the name was shortened to Elizabeth. The 
variety was placed in the fruit-list of the American Pomological Society in 
1854. 
Tree small, upright, dense-topped, hardy, very productive; trunk slender; branches 
brownish-green, partly overspread with thin, gray scarf-skin, marked by conspicuous, 
oval lenticels; branchlets slender, long, reddish-brown mingled with green, new growth 
exceptionally red, dull, smooth, glabrous except on the younger wood, with obscure, 
raised lenticels. 
Leaf-buds small, short, pointed, plump, free. Leaves 3 in. long, 13 in. wide, stiff; apex 
variable; margin almost entire; petiole 2 in. long, slender, reddish-green; stipules very small 
and slender when present. Flower-buds small, short, conical, plump, free, singly on short 
spurs; flowers early, showy, 1% in. across, in dense clusters, average 8 buds in a cluster; 
pedicels 1 in. long, lightly pubescent. 
Fruit ripe in late August; small, 23 in. long, 23 in. wide, obovate-obtuse-pyriform, 
symmetrical, uniform; stem 1 in. long, thick, curved; cavity acuminate, shallow, narrow, 
symmetrical, often lipped; calyx large, almost closed; lobes separated at the base, short, 
narrow, acuminate; basin shallow, obtuse, gently furrowed and wrinkled; skin tough, 
characteristically rough, glossy; color bright yellow, with a lively, red cheek, mottled with 
1The fame of Robert Manning as an accurate and discriminating American pomologist will long 
endure. Few Americans, one conceives, as his life is reviewed, have rendered greater service in any field 
of the nation’s agriculture. The quantity of his work was not remarkably large, but the quality was 
superfine. Systematic pomology in particular owes him much for his painstaking descriptions of fruits, 
and his corrections in nomenclature. Born in Salem, Mass., July 18, 1784, he made the town of his birth 
famous as a pomological center in America, where, at the time of his death, October 10, 1842, his garden 
probably contained a larger collection of fruits than had ever before been brought together in America. 
Manning began collecting fruits in 1823 when he established his ‘‘ Pomological Garden ” at Salem for the 
purpose of introducing and testing new varieties of fruits. He attempted to bring together all of the 
varieties of fruits that would thrive in eastern Massachusetts, and when his garden was fullest had about 
2000 fruits, of which 1000 kinds were pears, to which fruit he gave most attention. He had many English, 
French, and Belgian correspondents from whom he received the most notable fruits grown in their countries. 
He is said to have had a most remarkable memory and could carry in mind the names, tree-habits, and qual- 
ities of any fruit he had ever seen and could identify it at sight. In whatever group of pomologists 
he chanced to be, his identifications and decisions on nomenclature were accepted as correct. Small 
wonder, therefore, that the Book of Fruits, published by Manning in 1838, at once took the place of 
authority for descriptions of tree-fruits and for such small-fruits, trees, and shrubs as the author described. 
It was the first, and is almost the only, American pomology in which the descriptions were all made 
with fruit in hand. The author intended this book to be the first of a series, but the books to follow 
never appeared. He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Pear-growers 
are indebted to Manning for the work he did in testing the seedlings sent out by Van Mons, the famous 
Belgian breeder, most of whose pears came to American orchards through the agency of the Salem 
Pomological Garden. He also received and introduced valuable pears from the London Horticultural 
Society. His achievements mark Manning among the most notable American pomologists, of whom no 
other labored as devotedly for the attainment of better pears. 
