Plate IX. 
i. WILLIAMS’ BON CHRETIEN. 
| Syn : Wheelers; Bartlett; De Lavault; Williams’ .\ 
“ In Amitermis vale, the Sabine boors 
Added Bon-cretiens to their former stores.” 
(Rapin , “ The Orchard ,” translated by Gardener.) 
This highly esteemed Pear was raised a short time previous to 1770, by a person of the name 
of Wheeler, a schoolmaster at Aldermaston, in Berkshire; from him it was obtained by Mr. Williams, 
the nurseryman at Turnham Green, Middlesex, and being by him first distributed, it received the 
name it now bears. In 1799 it was introduced to America by Mr. Enoch Bartlett, of Dorchester, 
near Boston, through whom it became generally distributed, and has ever since been known there 
by the name of the Bartlett Pear. It attains the highest perfection in America, and is esteemed as 
the finest and best keeping Pear of its season, it has even been brought back to England with its 
new name. 
Description. —Fruit, large, obtuse-pyriform, irregular, and bossed in its outline. Skin, 
smooth, at first pale green, changing as it ripens to clear yellow, and tinged with streaks of red 
next the sun. Eye, open, set in a very shallow depression, but more generally even with the 
