It is pertinent to inquire, now, as to what types of pears the ancients had. Such an inquiry leads up to another and much more important question: Have new characters appeared in pears since Pliny wrote? If so, it may be possible that we shall be forced to assume that man’s dominancy over this fruit has produced the new characters, in which case search might be made for the key to unlock more new characters. For the present, however, only the first question can be considered, before going into which it is necessary to know what the most prominent characters of the pear are. Only those of the fruit need be named.

There are twenty outstanding characters which differentiate the varieties of pears now cultivated, not taking account of those introduced by the hybridization of P. communis with P. serotina which has given pomology the Kieffer-like varieties. These characters are: Smooth or russet skin; red, yellow, or green color; large or small size; early or late season; long or short stem; round, oblate, ovate, and pyriform shapes; granular, buttery, or breaking flesh; sweet or acid flavor. In the pears described by Pliny so many of these characters are mentioned or may be assumed to be present from inference, that the conclusion is forced that in the many new pure-bred pears of P. communis which have come into existence since Pliny’s time, showing a great shuffling of characters in pear-breeding, it is doubtful whether new characters have come into being in 2000 years. This, in turn, forces the conclusion that if this fruit is to be greatly changed, the change must come about through hybridization with other species.

Another quotation from Pliny shows that the Romans valued pears as a medicine as well as a food, had curious notions as to their digestibility, and, as with most plants, ascribed other marvelous qualities to them. Thus, Pliny says:

There is in the books of these old farmer-writers a mass of sagacious teachings which can never be outlived—will always underlay the best practice. Followed carefully, except in the matter of pests, the precepts of Cato and Varro would as certainly lead to success as the mandates of the modern experiment stations with all the up-to-date appliances for carrying out their commands. Sagacity fails, however, in one respect in these Roman husbandmen—all are fettered by superstitions. In these old books on the arts of husbandry, woven in with the practical precepts, which stand well the test of science, superstitions abound beyond present belief. Thus, whenever the discourse turns to pears, from Diophanes, who lived in Asia Minor a century before Christ, down through the ages in Greece, Italy, France, Belgium to the eighteenth century in England, runs the superstition, with various modifications, that to grow the best pears you must bore a hole through the trunk at the ground and drive in a plug of oak or beech over which the earth must be drawn. If the wound does not heal, it must be washed for a fortnight with the lees of wine. As the superstition waned, the apologetic injunction usually follows, that, in any event the wine-lees will improve the flavor of the fruit. Another superstition, current for centuries, accepted by Cato and Varro, and handed on with abiding faith almost to modern times was, as stated by Barnaby Googe, a farmer and writer subject of Queen Elizabeth, “if you graffe your peare upon a Mulbery, you shall have red Peares.” Stories of promiscuous grafting abound in the old books. Another is that if an apple be grafted on the pear, the fruit is a “pearmain.”

After Pliny follows a dreary and impenetrable period of 1500 years, in which time but few new facts regarding the evolution of the pear come to light in what is now Italy. The pear is mentioned, it is true, by many Roman writers, but all copy Theophrastus, Cato, and Pliny. Dioscorides, a learned Greek physician and botanist, who may be said to have been the author of the first book of “applied science” in botany, was the great botanical and pomological authority for the first 1600 years of the present era, many editions of his book appeared and in several languages, and it is he who is most often quoted by writers on fruits even until the seventeenth century, but he adds nothing new on the pear, and does not even extend the list of known varieties. During these 1600 years a great number of voluminous commentaries on Dioscorides appeared, in several of which names of new pears are mentioned, but, with the exception of one writer, the descriptions are so terse that the new sorts cannot be connected with older or later periods. The exception is Matthiolus (1501-1577), but since the English herbalists, in their turn, largely copy Matthiolus, with valuable amplifications, it is better to give space further on to them.

Perhaps one more name should be mentioned among the Roman writers. Messer Pietro de Crescenzi, an Italian born at Bologna in 1230, wrote a book on agriculture in which the chapters on fruits are especially well written. For reasons to be mentioned, this book had a remarkable influence on the horticulture of Europe for the next three or four centuries. With the discovery of printing, nearly two centuries after the book was written, Crescenzi was published in numerous editions and in several languages to the great enlightenment of pomologists on the cultivation of fruits, but with small additions to the knowledge of the fruits themselves. Whether because the book was really the most serviceable of its kind in the world for four centuries, or whether by virtue of the happy circumstance of being many times printed, it had absolute supremacy over other agricultural texts, is now too late to judge. There is good reason to suspect that Crescenzi’s is the precedence of circumstance, for he stole page after page from Palladius, of the fourth century, who, to be sure, in his turn, copied Columella and the Greeks. Most of these borrowings, however, meet the requirement of being “bettered by the borrower” that separates adoption from plagiarism.

One other landmark, though a somewhat inconspicuous one, in the history of the pear in Italy, is deserving brief mention. Toward the middle of the sixteenth century Agostino Gallo, an Italian, wrote The Twenty Days of Agriculture and the Charms of Country Life. With the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, agriculture was reduced to the production of the necessities of life and pomology all but perished. It required a thousand years to recover from the domination of the barbarian conqueror of Rome. Hence, it is not surprising that Gallo names but twelve varieties of pears instead of the forty-one of Pliny. Gallo says that he does not name all of the summer pears, but leaves the inference that his list is complete for autumn and winter sorts. There probably was a greater number under cultivation at this time in Italy, but Gallo’s list shows that the number was small. Gallo is regarded as the restorer of agriculture in Italy after the dark ages, and as one of the most enlightened men of his time, so that we may accept him as an accurate historian. Besides furnishing a list of the pears of his day in Italy, Gallo names two that are now under cultivation—Bergamot and Bon Chrétien.

THE PEAR IN FRANCE

Who introduced the pear in France matters little. The Greeks who founded Marseille 600 B.C. may have done so. The Romans, masters of ancient Gaul for centuries, undoubtedly planted pears at widely separated places and in earliest times of Roman occupation. Or, and quite possibly, the original natives of the land began the domestication of the pear for, as we have seen, two cultivated species grow wild in what is now France. Date and manner of introduction matter less than a recognizable landmark in the history of the pear as an orchard plant in France. There is such a landmark and a conspicuous one.

Charlemagne, the many-sided genius who ruled the Franks in the ninth century, exercised his powerful influence in behalf of agriculture during the time of his reign, and to him is due credit for establishing the first notable landmark in the history of the pear in France. We are well informed of Charlemagne’s various activities while in power, for official annals were kept at the Frankish Court. Charlemagne’s secretary has left a biography of his master, and many of the King’s Capitularies, or lists of laws, are extant. In these records, agriculture is a matter of constant comment and the pear is often up for discussion. One quotation serves to show that this fruit was cultivated in considerable variety in Charlemagne’s orchards.

In the Capitulaire de Villis, Chapter LXX, Charlemagne is reported to have commanded his orchardists to plant pears of distinct kinds for distinct purposes. That the command was of sufficient importance to be recorded in a capitulaire indicates that Charlemagne esteemed this fruit. The order runs: “Plant pear trees whose products, because of pleasant flavor, could be eaten raw, those which will furnish fruits for cooking, and, finally, those which mature late to serve for use in winter.” There is little information in this brief command, but it tells us that a considerable number of varieties of pears were grown in France in the ninth century, and that they were of sufficient importance to hold the attention of a great and busy monarch.

Either the culture of the pear abruptly ceased with the death of Charlemagne or records ceased to be kept that would throw light on the agriculture of the next five centuries, for from the tenth to the fifteenth century is an uncharted waste in the history of the pear in France. Undoubtedly pears were cultivated during this time by the monks who had the time, the taste, and the land for carrying on agriculture. When the pear comes to light again in the happier period for pomology of the sixteenth century, the many names of monasteries in the list of varieties suggest that the monks not only busied themselves with the culture of the fruit but greatly increased the number of kinds of pears.

Three great minds now appeared to make France the leading country in the production of agricultural literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and all paid attention to pomology. The names of Charles Estienne, Olivier de Serres, and Le Lectier in agriculture mark the departure from traditions handed down from the old Greeks and Romans to the beginning of a new agriculture founded on first-hand study and observation. The printing-press, it is true, was now an invaluable ally, but these three men were of an original bent of mind and would have been distinguished in any period before printing.

Charles Estienne, the first and the least of these three early geniuses of French agriculture, published several works on agriculture, mostly compilations, but all containing original observations, in one of which, his “Seminarium,” printed in Paris in 1540, is a list of sixteen pears with brief descriptions of each. Not one of Estienne’s pears is now important, but all appear in the histories of minor sorts in the last chapter of this text.

De Serres, known in France as “The Father of Agriculture,” published his Le Théâtre d’Agriculture in 1608, a book ever to be notable in agriculture as the first to break wholly away from the 1600 years of repetition of book after book in the languages of Europe which but copied the ancients. De Serres was a good farmer—most of his farming operations have not been improved upon; he founded the first experimental farm of which there is record at his home near Pradel and so became the first of a long line of modern experimenters in agriculture. Lastly, De Serres was a charming writer and his book rapidly ran through many editions and was translated into several languages. To him must be given credit for first sounding the alluring call of “back to the land” which rings from nearly every page of his books. Here is his appeal to plant pears; and words could hardly make it simpler, more charming, and more compelling:

This laudation of the pear, in which it is made manifest that many pears of diverse shapes, colors, flavors, and perfumes existed in the year 1600, is all that space permits from De Serres, though much could be quoted as to the care of pear orchards, and a list of kinds could be given, of which, however, the descriptions count for but little. Le Lectier, to whom we now come, is a better authority on varieties.

Le Lectier, an attorney of the king at Orleans, was an amateur fruit collector, but a collector who reflected and printed his reflections. He seems to have been about the first of the many collectors who, with fruit-growing as an avocation, have zealously sought to improve and distribute varieties, and thereby have done as much or more for pomology than those who have made fruit-growing a vocation. Though Le Lectier collected all of the fruits of his time and country, the pear was mistress of his passion, a passion which gave him such pleasure that it excited others to become amateurs and emulate him. The result was that a country-wide taste for pears was stimulated and a veritable craze for this fruit was started—everybody planted pears.

The famous collection of fruits was begun by Le Lectier in 1598. By 1628, the infatuation to plant had progressed until Le Lectier could send to his fellow amateurs a catalog of his possessions of fruits with the desire to exchange. His offer to exchange shows all of the collector’s zeal. It reads as follows:

From Le Lectier’s list we learn that 300 years ago the French had at least 254 pears. In this catalog are many pears in the pomologies of today, but, unfortunately without descriptions or any attempt to determine duplicates in names or varieties, the list serves for little more than a monument for one of the first and one of the most zealous collectors of pears. Le Lectier, however, may be said to have introduced the golden age of pomology in France; for, during historical times there seems to have been no other period in which pomology exercised the minds and hands of well-to-do people as in the century that followed Le Lectier. Even the kings of France took pleasure in using the spade and the pruning-knife. La Quintinye, the best of the pomological writers of the day, complained that the country was overwhelmed with books on pomology. Thus, was ushered in the period which we may call our own in which the history of the pear may be read in books innumerable.

As steps in the progress of the pear, the number of varieties may be noted as given by French pomologists in the modern era of pear-growing. Merlet, 1667, describes 187 varieties; La Quintinye, 1690, 67; Duhamel, 1768, 119; the Chartreuse fathers, 1775, 102; Tollard, 1805, 120; Noisette, 1833, 238; while Leroy, 1867, from whom the figures just given were taken, says that in the half century preceding, the number of pears in France was quadrupled and that there are 900 varieties for which there are 3000 names. Leroy notes three events as the cause of the generous multiplication of pears in the period of which he writes: The introduction of the many varieties grown by Van Mons and other Flemish pomologists beginning about 1805; a little later, the establishment of exchange relations with English nurseries; and still later, 1849, the importation of a great number of new varieties from America. To Americans, it is particularly significant to note that the great progress of the pear in France is due to amateur tendance and not commercial success.

THE PEAR IN BELGIUM

Providence ordained Belgium to produce the modern pear. The evolution of the pear proceeded slowly, indeed, until its culture became common on the clayey and chalky soils in the cool, moist climate of Belgium, where flavor, aroma, texture, size, and color reach perfection. The pear was improved more in one century in Belgium than in all the centuries that had past. The part Providence played in endowing the Belgians with an ideal soil and climate for the pear, is but one of two causes of the results in improving the pear in this country. The other is that the Belgians, ever notable horticulturists, give the pear assiduous care, cultivate only the most approved varieties, and in breeding, aim ever at high quality, so that Belgian pear-growers, as well as an ordained soil and climate, must be given credit for the modern pear.

The early history of the pear in Belgium follows step by step that of the pear in France. In the sixteenth century, botanists were numerous in the Low Countries, their zeal and activity showing forth in several of the best of the early herbals. These herbalists, however, gave scant attention to the pear. Dodoens, most noted Belgian botanist of the century, dismissed the matter of varieties with the statement that the names change from village to village, and that it is therefore useless to give them. From this we may assume that a considerable number of pears were cultivated in Belgium at the time Dodoens wrote, about the middle of the sixteenth century.

Pear-breeding began in Belgium about 1730, when Nicolas Hardenpont, 1705-1774, a priest in his native town of Mons, made a large sowing of pear seed with a view of obtaining new pears of superior quality. Time is fleeting in breeding tree fruits, and the Abbé Hardenpont waited nearly 30 years before introducing his selected seedlings, and then, beginning in 1758, he introduced one new variety after another until a dozen or more new pears were accredited to him. At least six of these are still grown in Europe, but only one, the Passe Colmar, is known in America. But before going further with the work of the Belgian breeders, it is necessary to take stock of what was on hand before their time.

La Quintinye, the most noted French pomologist of his time, in 1690 listed 67 pear varieties. The Belgians probably had all of these. What were they? Most of them were old sorts—some were centuries old. All, so far as their histories show, originated by chance in garden, orchard, hedge row, and forest. No one seems yet to have planted seed with a view of obtaining new and better pears. Camerarius in 1694 had made known the fact of sex in plants. Soon after, experiments in hybridization began, but no one as yet had hybridized pears. Lastly, nearly all pears, before the Belgians began to improve them, were crisp or breaking in flesh, the crevers of the French, while the soft-fleshed, melting pears, the beurrés of the French, were as yet hardly known. Now, mostly owing to the work of the Belgians, the buttery pears predominate.

Of the means by which Hardenpont obtained his superior pears, there is no precise knowledge. Whether his new sorts were lucky chances out of a large number of promiscuous seedlings, or whether he was a pioneer in hybridizing can never be known. Du Mortier, a distinguished Belgian botanist, gives the credit of hybridization to the Abbé, basing his opinion on the fact that the characters of most of Hardenpont’s varieties are plainly a commingling of two well-known parents which could hardly be the case if they were happy chances were fate ever so kindly disposed.

Hardenpont soon had many imitators in Belgium. Indeed, the Belgians seem to have been quite carried off their feet by pear-breeding, and during the first half of the nineteenth century a fad like the “tulip craze” of Holland and the “mulberry craze” of America reigned in the country. Among the breeders are found the names of priests, physicians, scientists, apothecaries, attorneys, tradesmen, and gentlemen of leisure. The introduction of new varieties made notable in horticulture the towns of Mons, Tournaii, Enghien, Louvain, Malines, and Brussels. The awarding of medals for new pears produced the horticultural sensations of the times. Hundreds if not thousands of new varieties were introduced, of which many, it is true, have proved worthless, others of but secondary merit, while still others, as we shall find, are even now among the best pears under cultivation. But the great fact, be it remembered, is that these amateur pear-breeders wrought in a few years a complete transformation in a fruit that had been domesticated and had been fairly stable for over 2000 years.

A few names besides Hardenpont stand out prominently and must be mentioned. Of these, Van Mons is best known. Jean Baptiste Van Mons, 1765-1842, was a pharmacist, physicist, and physician, one of the savants of his time, who, late in the eighteenth century, under the potent spell cast by Hardenpont’s work, began to breed pears. Space forbids an account of Van Mons’ experiments. Suffice to say that he introduced more than two scores of pears having lasting merit, and that in the height of his career he had in his “Nursery of Fidelity” at Louvain, eighty thousand seedlings. Van Mons outlives in fame the Belgian pear-breeders of his time because he propounded a theory for the origination of new varieties of plants, and this in its turn is famed as the first complete system of plant improvement. Van Mons contributed but little of direct value to plant-breeding, but indirectly he gave a great impetus to breeding pears and to the culture of the pear, more especially in America, and we must therefore glance at his theory and trace more in detail its influence on American pear-growing.

Van Mons’ theory, in brief, as expounded in various papers, is: A species does not vary in the place in which it is born; it reproduces only plants which resemble itself. The causes of variation are changes in soil, climate, or temperature. Whenever a species produces one or many varieties, these varieties continue to vary always. The source of all variation, which is transmissible by sowing, resides in the seeds. The older a variety, the less the seedlings vary, and the more they tend to return toward the primitive form, without being able ever to reach that state; the younger or newer the variety, the more the seedlings vary.

In putting his theory in practice Van Mons took the first seeds from wild plants or those little improved, from which he grew seedlings, and from these the seeds were taken from the first fruits to ripen for new sowings. This practice he repeated generation after generation. Thus, it is seen that Van Mons was an early apostle of selection. He is said to have distributed over 400 varieties, about 40 of which are still under cultivation. It is to be feared, however, that Van Mons’ theory was preconceived without experiment or even observation for a foundation. He devoted a life of most admirable zeal to verifying and developing this vision of his early years with some material reward it is true, but with a better foundation his prodigious labors would have yielded greater direct results in improving the pear. Still, the indirect results, his influence on the pomologists of two continents, even though they did not subscribe to his theories, was more valuable than the work of one mind and one pair of hands could possibly have been.

There must always be pioneers, men who stray from beaten paths, but pioneers seldom exert wide and deep influence at once—leave the worn path, so to speak, and at once construct a macadamized road—yet this was what Van Mons did. Pomologists agree that until his time no man had exerted so profound an influence on pomology. His love of discovery and love of labor permeated fruit-growing in Europe and America. Fortunately, it was the age of the amateur fruit-grower. Pleasure and progress, driven by curiosity, counted for more than commercial success, so that Van Mons’ new varieties at once gave him wide fame. He was made known to American pear-growers by Robert Manning who distributed his new varieties in this country and described them in the horticultural literature of the day and in his Book of Fruits published in 1838. Later, Andrew Jackson Downing, the brilliant genius of American horticulture, published Van Mons’ theories and described many of his new pears in his Fruits and Fruit Trees, which came from the press in 1845. Thus, Van Mons became the recognized authority in America on all matters relating to the pear. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that we owe him obligations as the founder of pear-culture in this country.

But the work of the Belgians does not end with Van Mons. There were other breeders of pears, who, though not to be classed with Van Mons as a Titan, lacking the quality of mind to set forth a new philosophy, helped to enliven the impulse given by their leader to the improvement of the pear by originating new varieties. Chief of these are Major Espéren, of Malines, who introduced twenty of the pears mentioned in the Pears of New York; Bivort, who has twenty-three to his credit; Gregoire, forty-two; Simon Bouvier, eleven; De Jonghe, six; and De Nelis, five. While, if the lists of varieties in the last two chapters of this text be scanned for Belgians who introduced but one, two, or three new pears, the list runs up into the hundreds. Labor finds its summit in the work of these Belgian pear-breeders, who obtained petty rewards by sifting millions of seedlings through the coarse meshes of the sieve of selection. We can pardon these enthusiastic breeders with grace for over-zealousness in naming varieties obtained with such prodigious efforts.

THE PEAR IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

The pear can be improved only where the pear-tree flourishes, and then only when assisted by the foresight and desire of men. This happy combination seems not to exist in Europe outside of Italy, France, Belgium, and England. The pear flourishes along the Danube, in parts of Austria and southern Germany, and along the upper Rhine, but the people of these regions seem to have been followers rather than leaders in developing this fruit, having produced almost no meritorious varieties. America is indebted to the vast region of central and western Europe for but one major variety, the Forelle, and this sort is of little importance.

Pomology, the world over, however, is indebted to Germany for much valuable pomological literature. Cordus, Mayer, Christ, Diel, Dittrich, Truchsess, Hinkert, Dochnahl, Oberdieck, Engelbrecht, Lauche, and Gaucher, all Germans, and Kraft, an Austrian, have been industrious compilers, and have given pomology some of its best texts on systematic pomology.

Cordus, earliest German pomological writer, wrote an illuminating chapter in the history of the pear, which must be reproduced. Valerius Cordus, 1515-1544, a botanical genius, made botanical expeditions to nearly every part of Germany, in the course of which he made special study of the apple and the pear. He described fifty pears and thirty-one apples. These descriptions are noteworthy as the earliest for these fruits in Germany. Cordus is called by one great botanist, “the inventor of the art of describing plants;” by another, he is said to have been “first to teach men to cease from dependence on the poor descriptions of the ancients and to describe plants anew from nature;” a third botanical authority says of him, “the first of all men to excel in plant description;” while a fourth writes of the four books of his Historia Plantarum “truly extraordinary because of the accuracy with which the plants are described.” Thus, botanists accord him special distinction, but pomologists seem not to know this resplendent systemist of the sixteenth century, who, as we shall see, is especially deserving of pomological recognition.

Cordus is entitled to honor in the history of pomology as first to print descriptions of fruits for the purpose of identifying varieties. No doubt as soon as the earth ceased to furnish spontaneously the primitive luxury of ready-to-eat food in the shape of fruit, making culture necessary, varieties were acquired and became commodities as they are today. Varieties were certain to originate under cultivation, and their value was certain to be recognized by our first ancestors, to whom the convenience, necessity, and expediency of having a diversity of kinds of any fruit as well as of a means of keeping them true to kind, must have been apparent at the beginning of fruit culture. That such was the case, the most ancient sacred and profane writings assure us. Varieties of the fig, olive, grape, and other fruits are mentioned by all early writers on plants. That varieties of fruits would not come true to seed was early known, and propagation by cuttings, layers, and grafting was invented to preserve choice sorts. Many of the early writers name varieties, tell from whence they came, and some set forth a remarkable character or two, but none give detailed descriptions. Cordus was first to engage in this sort of enterprise.

This chapter from Cordus is important, too, because it makes plain that the pears grown in Germany four hundred years ago possessed all the characters to be found in modern pears. Culture has increased size, modified shapes, augmented flavors, brightened colors, and softened textures, but no characters that can be considered new or distinct, unit characters of the plant-breeder, have been introduced in the four centuries that have gone by. The characters possessed by these German pears are the same, so far as can be made out, as those of the varieties grown by the Greeks and Latins nearly 2000 years earlier. From this, the inference must be drawn that the characters of the pear have not originated under cultivation but exist in wild types. New and distinct characters can come only by hybridization with another species. Pears within a species are changed only by a recombination of the characters possessed by the species.

The descriptions of varieties from Cordus[4] that follow are commended to pomologists as models of brevity and accuracy. These word-pictures reproduce the pears as vividly as an artist could paint them. One sees at once that Cordus was no compiler. Such descriptions as Cordus writes can be made only in the orchard with the pear in hand.

THE PEAR IN ENGLAND

Much as America owes England for fruit, farm, and garden crops, she is but little indebted to her for pears. Varieties of pears have come to the New World almost wholly from Belgium and France, not more than three or four major sorts of English origin being among those now commonly grown in America. But even though the line of march in the development of varieties scarcely touches England, all English speaking pear-growers have received instruction as to culture and have had knowledge of continental varieties transmitted to them through English publications. In the history of fruits in England, therefore, many gleams of light illuminate the path along which the pear has been brought from the ancients to America.

No doubt the pear was brought to Britain before the Roman conquest. Tacitus, in the first century, says the climate of Britain is suitable to the culture of all fruits and vegetables except the grape and the olive. Pliny writes that the Britains had the cherry before the middle of the first century, and almost certainly the pear and other fruits were introduced with it. There was, also, a Saxon name for the pear, pirige, so philologists say, before the fall of the Roman Empire. The years 43 and 407 mark the beginning and the end of the Romans and of civilization in Britain for many centuries, and whether or not the pear was permanently established during this time there are now no means of ascertaining. The climate and soil of England are congenial to the pear, however, and no doubt wild or little cultivated trees persisted until the Norman conquest, the spread of Christianity, and the building of many monasteries with orchards and gardens as essential adjuncts.

Even in England under the Normans who came in 1066, not much progress was made in fruit-growing. Tillers of the soil were hard pressed for the necessities of life and could only with difficulty harvest a bare sustenance from the land. Besides, monks and nobles preyed on the starving peasants so that at no time could the farmer be sure of reaping what he planted. Only these monks and nobles enjoyed luxuries. But even men who boasted of titles and owned large holdings of land had little room within fortified walls and on moated islands, which constant wars made necessary, for fruits; nor had they time from projects of war and the pleasures of the chase to devote to the art of agriculture. Fortunately, priors and abbots were well disposed toward the good things of life, therefore made much of fruits and vegetables, and with abundance of leisure the monks became the only proficients of the times in gardening and orcharding. Moreover, they were in constant correspondence with the continent and could ascertain what culture was needed to grow perfect fruits. Pear culture had its beginnings in England, then, in the monasteries established under the Normans.

Pressed for an exact date as to when the pear began to be cultivated in England, the historians would be troubled to name one. There is a plan of the monastery of Canterbury made in 1165 which shows an orchard and a vineyard. History, moreover, relates that armed men collected in an orchard to take hand in the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170. Men in those days set small store by written accounts, and history must be helped out by imagination, and we may imagine that there were pears in this orchard.

Pears by this time had become common, for there are records of varieties to a considerable number and in large quantities which could have been had only from rather extensive orchards. Mrs. Evelyn Cecil[5] publishes documents from the Record office of England which contain items of pears bought for Henry III and Edward I at different times in the thirteenth century, the first date being “probably for the year 1223.” The pears appear to be of French origin, and the varieties are Caloels, Pesse Pesceles, Ruler, and Martyns. In a later memorandum, 1292-93, still other varieties are named as the Regul, Calwel, Dieyer, Sorell, Chryfall, and Gold Knoper. The pears were sold by the hundred and were used for desert, though “pears in syrup” and pears for cider are mentioned. The perusal of these documents, printed in considerable detail in Mrs. Cecil’s admirable book, enables us to fix the beginning of commercial pear culture in England at as early a date as 1200.

Passing by several other references from records and financial accounts of monasteries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as too vague to be of importance, although they make certain that the pear was rather widely cultivated in England in these two centuries, we come at last to a noteworthy landmark in pear history in England, the introduction of the Warden pear, which may be put at the conveniently vague date of the end of the fourteenth century, 1388 being the first year they are mentioned.

“Warden” was a name used for centuries to designate a group of pear varieties having crisp, firm flesh and which were used for culinary purposes. Their history runs back to the Cistercian Abbey of Warden in Bedfordshire and to a date earlier than 1388. Warden pears were favorites for centuries for pies and pastries which every early cook-book contained recipes for making. In the early English literature they are considered a distinct fruit as “apples, pears, quinces, wardens,” and even the herbals and early fruit books count them as distinct. Shakespeare’s clown in A Winter’s Tale says: “I must have saffron to colour the Warden pies.” The name came to signify any long-keeping, cooking pear and even yet is so used in parts of England.

The most noteworthy landmark is found in the discussions of pears by the English herbalists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Turner, the first of these herbalists, in his Herbal of 1551, mentions the pear but without important details, though we may infer from what he says that the pear is now a common fruit. Thomas Tusser, in his Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie, published in 1573, gives a list of fruits to be set or removed in January in which he includes “pears of all sorts,” and then as a separate item includes “Warden, white and red,” showing that “Wardens” were held as distinct from the pear and that they were prominent in the orchards of the time. The century ends with John Gerarde’s Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes, 1597, in which we are brought to the realization that the pear is no longer a probationary fruit or even to be considered a novelty or luxury but a standard food product. Gerarde might well be quoted in full, but since Parkinson, a few years later, contains a “fuller discourse,” as one of Gerarde’s editors says, we take but a few sentences from Gerarde.

Varieties by this time had become numerous. Gerarde, while he names but eight, says he knew someone who grew “at the point of three score sundrie sorts of Peares, and those exceeding good; not doubting but that if his minde had beene to seeke after multitudes he might have gotten together the like number of those worse kindes ... to describe each pear apart, were to send an owle to Athens, or to number those things without number.” Eight sorts are considered worth figuring, those accorded the honor being: “the Jenneting, Saint James, Royall, Beugomot, Quince, Bishop, Katherine, and the Winter Peare.” Of these the Katherine is given further prominence by being listed as “known to all.” If one is to judge from number of varieties, the pear at this time is a more general favorite than the apple, a considerably greater number of sorts being indicated.

Parkinson’s account in his Paradisus of 1629, indeed does prove to be a “fuller discourse” for he names and describes 65 sorts; but these are not all for he says: “The variety of peares is as much or more then of apples, and I thinke it is as hard in this, as before in apples, for any to be so exquisite, as that hee could number up all the sorts that are to be had: for wee have in our country so manie, as I shall give you the names of by and by, and are hitherto come to our knowledge: but I verily beleeve that there be many, both in our country, and in others, that we have not yet knowne or heard of; for every yeare almost wee attaine to the knowledge of some, we knew not of before. Take therefore, according to the manner before held, the description of one, with the severall names of the rest, untill a more exact discourse be had of them, every one apart.” Some of the names in Parkinson’s list are group names covering several varieties. Thus, he says, “the Winter Bon Chretien is of many sorts;” and again, “the Winter Bergomot is of two or three sorts;” and, “the Winter peare is of many sorts.”

Parkinson’s descriptions are brief but written with rare clearness, and the old herbalist seems to have possessed a nicety of observation that commends him to all who have eyes for the distinguishing characters of fruits. With Parkinson our history of the pear in England must come to a close, since later accounts are available to all, and therefore as an important inventory, and because every word is pertinent, his account of varieties is republished.