296 



THE PEAR. 



tliorny. The young leaves are slightly downy 

 beneath, but, when mature, are quite smooth on 

 both sides. When it is cultivated, the thorns on 

 the branches disappear, as in the Plum. The 

 flowers grow in clusters, and are large and of a 

 pure white. The fruit is much smaller than that 

 of any of the cultivated varieties, hard, austere, 

 and unfit to eat ; its only use is to mix with cul- 

 tivated sorts in making perry. The wood was 

 formerly sought after for wood-engraving, but is 

 only adapted to coarse designs : it is also some- 

 times dyed black, in imitation of ebony. 



For usefulness as a fruit-tree, the Pear is ri- 

 valled only by the Apple, — furnishing abundance 

 of fruit, which is valuable in its fresh state, as w^ell 

 as for baking and preserving. Many sorts were 

 well known to the Greeks and Romans ; Pliny 

 enumerates thirty-two. It was cultivated in Eng- 

 land at a very early period. Chaucer makes men- 

 tion of it; and in an account-book of Henry VIII. 

 there are the following charges, among others: — 



£ s, d. 



" For medlars and wardens* . . .034 



Item^ to a woman who gaff the Kyng peres . 0 0 2 " 



In Gerard's time, threescore sundrie sorts of 

 pears, and those exceeding good," were growing 

 in one garden ; and of late years so much atten- 

 tion has been paid to the multiplying of sorts, 

 that the Horticultural Society's list for 1831 

 enumerates 677 named varieties. 



The Pear-tree is long-lived, much more so in 

 its cultivated than in its wild state ; and its pro- 



* " Wardens" were so called from their property of keeping : 

 " peres" were probably some common kind of pear. 



