The Pears of New York. U. P. Hedrick
“The Warden or Luke Wards peare of two sorts, both white and red, both great and small.
“The Spanish Warden is greater than either of both the former, and better also.
“The peare of Jerusalem, or the stript peare, whose barke while it is young, is as plainly seene to be stript with greene, red, and yellow, as the fruit it selfe is also, and is of a very good taste: being baked also, it is as red as the best Warden, whereof Master William Ward of Essex hath assured mee, who is the chiefe keeper of the Kings Granary at Whitehall.
“Hereof likewise there is a wilde kinde no bigger than ones thumbe, and striped in the like manner, but much more.
“The Choke peares, and other wilde peares, both great and small, as they are not to furnish our Orchard, but the Woods, Forrests, Fields, and Hedges, so wee leave them to their naturall places, and to them that keep them, and make good use of them.”
Three hundred years have played havoc with the pears Parkinson knew. None are known in America, and unless the Pound of Parkinson is the Pound of today, not a half dozen are found in current lists in England. Parkinson’s Catherine, Winter Bon Chretien, Windsor, Bergamot, possibly the Pound, and his Gergonell, the Jargonelle of today, are about all the names that would be recognized by modern pear-growers. The pear shows far fewer familiar names at the end of three centuries than Parkinson lists of apples, plums, cherries, or even the peach in Europe. Dropping old varieties can only be interpreted as improvement in the pear. The pear, it seems certain, has been more profoundly changed for the better through the touch of man’s hand than the other fruits named since Parkinson wrote. For this, pomology has the Belgians to thank.
Pear culture seems to have reached its height, if it be judged by its literature and by the number of varieties cultivated, early in the nineteenth century. The Belgians’ passion for pears was no doubt the chief stimulus, for the Belgian breeders spread their offerings with generous hand throughout England. In 1826, the catalog of the Horticultural Society of London listed 622 pears. Pomology in England was then, and is now as compared with America, an art of the leisure classes. This has been an advantage and a disadvantage to the pear in England. The advantage is that when fruit is grown for pleasure many varieties are grown to add novelty to luxury so that the fruit is thereby more rapidly improved and its culture brought to greater perfection. The disadvantage is that those who grow fruit for market find a poorer market for their wares since those who should be their best customers supply their own wants. For the reason, therefore, that the English take delight in growing their own fruit, pear-growing is not the great commercial enterprise that it is in America.
Pear-growing in England differs from that of America in another respect. The pear-tree in England is built as much as planted. In many plantations each tree has a precise architectural form. The plants are trained into fans, cordons, espaliers and u-forms on walls; or as pyramids, globes, or vases in the open; sometimes in fantastic shapes to suit the fancy of the grower; and now and then as a hedge or border. The undisciplined standards of America are hardly known, though what the English call a standard seems to be increasing. This difference in training is due in part to the necessity of meeting different climatic conditions, and in part to greater devotion on the Englishman’s part to the art of gardening—the use of the shears, the knife, and the billhook give the gardener greater scope. The pear-tree in England is often decorative as well as useful.
THE PEAR IN AMERICA
The pear is a popular fruit in America, but its culture as a commercial product is limited to a few favored localities. From the earliest records of fruit-growing in America the pear has been grown less than the apple and peach and scarcely more than the cherry and plum. In Europe, it is a question if the pear is not more commonly grown than the apple, and is much more common than the plum and the peach, the last-named fruit being grown out of doors for most part only in southern Europe. Pears are more varied in size, shape, texture, and flavor of flesh than others of the hardy tree-fruits, and in length of season exceed all others excepting the apple. Varieties of pears, possibly, have the charm of individuality more marked than varieties of its orchard associates. The trees, where environment permits their culture, are not difficult to grow, and attain greater size, produce larger crops, and live longer than any other hardy fruit. Why, then, is the pear not more popular in America? Conditions of climate, pests, season of ripening, taste, and trade prevent the expansion of pear-culture on this side of the Atlantic.
The climate in most parts of America is uncongenial to the pear. Pears from the European stock, to which most varieties grown in America belong, thrive only in relatively equable climates, and do not endure well the sudden and extreme variations in climate to which most parts of this continent are subject. Extremes of heat or cold, wetness or dryness, are fatal to the pear. In North America, therefore, commercial pear-culture is confined to favored localities on the Atlantic seaboard, about the Great Lakes, and on the Pacific slope. Even in these favored regions, pears sent to market come largely from the plantations of specialists. On the Atlantic seaboard, European pears are products of commerce only in southern New England and New York, westward through Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie, and in the southern lake regions of Michigan. Away from these bodies of water to the Pacific, varieties of European pears refuse to grow except with the utmost care in culture and selection of sites. On the Pacific slope, in the hardy-fruit regions, the pear reaches its highest development in the New World. Oriental pears, or varieties having Oriental blood, as Kieffer and Le Conte, are grown in every part of America where the culture of hardy fruits is attempted.
Liability to loss by pests is a great detriment to the popularity of the pear in America. The insect pests of pears are numerous. Codling-moths attack the fruit wherever the pear is grown in America, and can be kept down only by expensive arsenical sprays. The psylla, while irregular in its outbreaks, is most damaging and hard to control when it appears. These are the chief insect enemies, but a dozen others take more or less toll from tree or fruit. Foliage and fruit are attacked by several parasitic fungi, of which pear-scab is most troublesome, requiring treatment wherever the pear is grown, and under favorable conditions for the fungus preventives often fail to give the fruits a fair cheek. But of all diseases pear-blight is the most serious, its effects and virulency being such as to give it the popular name “fire-blight.” It is caused by a bacterium which cannot be checked by sprays, and must be combatted with expensive and unsatisfactory sanitary measures, such as cutting out branches and trees, so drastic as to make impossible commercial cultivation of pears in regions where climate favors the disease.
Pears compete with apples more than with any other fruit, but are at a disadvantage with this near relative in having a much shorter period during which the fruits can be used. Varieties of the two fruits begin to ripen at nearly the same season, but there are few sorts of pears in season later than December, and these are of poorer quality than the fall varieties; while apples are abundant and of prime quality four or five months later, and may be kept until early apples usher in a new season. During most of its season, also, the pear must compete with the perishable summer and autumn plums and peaches, so luscious and delectable that the firmer and less highly flavored pome-fruits suffer in comparison.
Still another reason why the pear is not a popular dessert fruit in America is that, of all fruits, the varieties of this one are the most variable in quality of the product. Sorts that should produce pears of highest quality bear fruits poor or indifferent in texture and flavor in unfavorable seasons, on unsuitable soils, or under neglect. Good pears can be grown only when environmental factors are favorable and under the most generous treatment. Extensive cultivation of the Kieffer and its kin for canning has hindered the cultivation of pears for the fruit-stand and to grace the table as a dessert fruit. So common has the Kieffer become that many of the present generation are hardly aware that the pear may be a delicious fruit to eat out of hand.
Lastly, the pear falls short of the apple as a commercial product because it is not nearly so satisfactory to handle as a commercial crop. Pears are more difficult to pack, and do not stand transportation as well as apples. They cannot be kept in cold storage nearly