THE PEARS OF NEW YORK 229 
trees. Except in susceptibility to scab, the trees are nearly perfect when 
grown in the soil which they prefer — a rich clay, heavy rather than light. 
On such a soil, tree and fruit attain perfection. The accompanying illus- 
tration shows this pear at its best in color and size—a handsome fruit 
rather than the unattractive product so often seen. Grown in a light soil, 
and when scab is unchecked, the fruits are small, green, cracked, and 
cankered — intolerable to sight and taste. Unfortunately, also, the trees 
are ravaged by blight when that disease is epidemic. The faults named 
have made the variety an outcast, but it should still receive atten- 
tion for the superb quality of its fruits where scab and blight can be 
controlled. 
This pear is one of the oldest of all varieties. It is impossible to state 
whether it originated in France or was brought to that country from Italy. 
A German, Henri Manger, who studied the origin of fruits, states in his 
Systematische Pomologie, 1780, that the White Doyenné originated with 
the Romans; he considered it to be their Sementinum. Agostino Gallo, 
1559, called the variety Pera Ghiacciuola. In 1660, Claude Saint-Etienne 
described a Poire de Neige. Both of these descriptions represent White 
Doyenné. In the sixteenth century and for part of the seventeenth, the 
name Ghiacciuola was accepted for the variety in France with the synonym 
Saint-Michel. Leroy states that Le Lectier, in his catalog of the fruit 
trees which he grew at Orléans in 1628, changed the name to Giaccole de 
Rome, and Nicholas de Bonnefonds modified it in the first edition of his 
Jardinier Francais, 1652, to Giacciola di Roma. English pomologists have 
mentioned this pear under a variety of names since early in the seventeenth 
century. The names Poire Doyenné and White Doyenné have been most 
generally applied to it. The date of its introduction to America is not 
known, but it was probably brought to this country by the earliest French 
settlers. The first American catalogs mentioned the variety, and it was 
extensively grown in the vicinity of New York and Long Island where 
it was commonly called the Virgalieu pear. .In the neighborhood of Boston, 
the name Saini-Michael was applied to it; while around Philadelphia it 
was called the Butter Pear. For nearly a century, however, the variety 
has been most generally known in this country as White Doyenné. At 
the Convention of Fruit-Growers held in New York, in 1848, White 
Doyenné was included in a short list of pears recommended for general 
cultivation. Since that date, the American Pomological Society has given 
the variety a place in its fruit-catalog. 
