THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 217 
SHELDON 
1. Mag. Hort. 17:252, fig. 25. 1851. 2. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 151. 1854. 3. Ibid. 210. 1856. 4. 
Downing Fr. Trees Am. 444, fig. 1857. 5. Elliott Fr. Book 347. 1859. 6. Hoffy N. Am. Pom. 1: PI. 
1860. 7. Mas Le Verger 3: Pt. 2, 119, fig. 156. 1866-73. 8. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 855, fig. 1869. 
9. Leroy Dict. Pom. 23662, fig. 1869. 
Were the fruits alone to be considered, Sheldon would take rank as 
one of the best of all pears. The fruits please both the eye and the palate. 
Those of no rival in season surpass them either in appearance or in charac- 
ters that satisfy taste. While not large, the fruits are of sufficient size to 
meet the demands of a good dessert pear. The shape is a perfect turbinate, 
truncated at the base of the fruit, usually very symmetrical, and the fruits 
run uniform in shape. In color, the pears are distinctive in their russeted 
skin, with a handsome ruddy cheek. The accompanying color-plate does 
not do justice to the fruit in illustrating size, shape, or color. The flesh is 
melting and juicy, and deserves, more than that of almost any other pear, 
the adjective luscious. The flavor is sweet, vinous, and highly perfumed. 
The fruits keep well, ship well, and sell well during their season, and are 
esteemed both for dessert and for culinary purposes. The list of faults in 
the trees is as long as the list of virtues in the fruits. The trees, while large, 
vigorous, and hardy, blight as badly as any pear-tree in the orchard, are 
reluctant in coming in bearing, niggardly in production, and seldom hold 
their crop well. With these faults of the tree, Sheldon is not a commercial 
variety of high rank, but the splendid fruits make it worth growing by the 
pear-fancier, in the home orchard, or for the markets where the faults of 
the trees are not too marked. The variety grows better in New York, 
possibly, than in any other part of the United States. 
This pear is a native of the town of Huron, New York. The original 
tree stood on the premises of Major Sheldon, having sprung from seed brought 
by his father from Washington, New York, about 1815. The fruit was 
first exhibited at the Pomological Convention in Syracuse in the autumn 
of 1849. In 1854, Sheldon was mentioned by the American Pomological 
Society as promising well, and in 1856 it was given a place in the Society’s 
fruit-catalog. 
Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, rapid-growing, hardy, moderately productive; 
trunk stocky; branches thick, reddish-brown, overlaid with dull gray scarf-skin, marked 
with large lenticels; branches thick, dull brown, glabrous, with numerous slightly raised, 
conspicuous lenticels. 
Leaf-buds large, above medium in length, obtuse or somewhat pointed, appressed. 
