The Pears of New York. U. P. Hedrick
to assume that the beginning of the cultivation of the pear, or of any plant, was contemporaneous with the writing of even the oldest books. Mention of a cultivated plant in a book is proof that its domestication antedates the writing of the book. It is not easy to imagine tribes of semi-civilized men in southern Europe and Asia who did not make use of the apples, pears, quinces, plums, cherries, almonds, olives, figs, pomegranates, and grapes which grew wild in this land of gardens and orchards, and who did not minister to their needs as husbandmen long before men wrote books. Names for orchard operations, as planting, grafting, and pruning, in the simplest dialects of primitive peoples, establish the fact that husbandry long antedates writing, as would be expected from the greater need of the one than of the other.
Plutarch, a Greek writer, A.D. 50–120, enlightens us as to the early use of the pear by the Greeks, and also as to the Grecian name for the fruit and tree. He says in his Greek Questions (51):
“Why do the boys of the Argives playing at a certain festival call themselves Ballachrades? (Ballo, I throw; achras, a wild pear.)
“It is because they say that those who were first brought down by Inachus (founder of Argos) from the rural districts into the plains were nourished on wild pears (achrades). But wild pears (they say) were first seen by the Greeks in Peloponnesus, when that country was still called Apia; whence wild pears were named apioi. (Apios, a pear-tree; apion, a pear.)”
The pear is one of the “gifts of the gods” which Homer tells us grew in the garden of Alcinöus. It is certain, therefore, whether or not this is the earliest mention of the pear in Greek literature, that in Homer’s time, nearly one thousand years before the Christian era, the pear was cultivated in Greece. As this garden of Alcinöus furnishes the earliest noteworthy landmarks of the pear, and is moreover the most renowned of heroic times, an early paradise of trees, vines, and herbs, it is worth while to take a look at it with a view of discovering the status of the pear at this early date. Stripped of the harmonious rhyme and pleasing rhythm of Homer’s poetry, the garden is described in English prose as follows:
“And without the court-yard hard by the door is a great garden, of four plough-gates, and a hedge runs round on either side. And there grow tall trees blossoming, pear-trees and pomegranates, and apple-trees with bright fruit, and sweet figs, and olives in their bloom. The fruit of these trees never perisheth, neither faileth winter or summer, enduring through all the year. Evermore the West Wind blowing brings some fruits to birth and ripens others. Pear upon pear waxes old, and apple on apple, yea, and cluster ripens upon cluster of the grape, and fig upon fig. There too hath he a faithful vineyard planted, whereof the one part is being dried by the heat, a sunny plot on level ground, while other grapes men are gathering, and yet others they are treading in the wine-press. In the foremost row are unripe grapes that cast the blossom, and others there be that are growing black to vintaging. There too, skirting the furthest line, are all manner of garden beds, planted trimly, that are perpetually fresh, and therein are two fountains of water, whereof one scatters his streams all about the garden, and the other runs over against it beneath the threshold of the court-yard, and issues by the lofty house, and thence did the townsfolk draw water.—These were the splendid gifts of the gods in the palace of Alcinöus.[1]”
Divested of the spell with which the poet’s flight of imagination bewitches us, we find that the wonderful garden of Alcinöus is, after all, rather trifling, probably of small extent, and containing an orchard, a vineyard, garden beds and two fountains of water, which brings us to the conclusion that this renowned garden would cut but a sorry figure beside modern gardens; but, on the other hand, we are made sure that certain fruits, among them the pear, were commonly cultivated in Greece a thousand years before Christ’s time. There is no hint in Homer as to whether there were as yet varieties of pears, or as to whether fruits were as yet pruned, grafted, fertilized and otherwise cared for. For indications that these arts of the orchard were under practice, we must pass on to the writings of another great Greek, Theophrastus.
Between Homer and Theophrastus nearly 600 years intervene, in all of which time traces of the pear are few and uncertain. But from Theophrastus, to whom botanists accord the title “Father of Botany,” we know that orcharding had been making progress, and that the pear, among other fruits, must have been as well known and nearly as well cared for in his time, 370–286 B.C., as in this twentieth century. All the expedients we now know to assist nature to bring pears to perfection, save spraying and cross-pollination, were known to Theophrastus, although of course the evolution from the wild state as indicated by number and diversity of kinds had not progressed so far. Out of one of the books of Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, a very good treatise on the pear might be compiled and one better worth following than many of his more modern imitators. To quote Theophrastus at length is impossible, but space must be given to a summary of what he says about pears.
Theophrastus distinguishes between wild and cultivated pears and says that the cultivated forms have received names. He speaks of the propagation of pears from seeds, roots, and cuttings and makes plain that plants grown from seed “lose the character of their kind and produce a degenerate kind.” Grafting is described. The nature of the ground is said to regulate the distance for planting pears, and the lower slopes of hills are recommended as the best sites for pear orchards. Root-pruning, girdling the stems, and driving iron pegs in the trunk and other methods of “punishing” trees are said to hasten the bearing time. Even the necessity of cross-pollination is recognized though of course the reasons for it are not known. Thus, Theophrastus says: “Trees which are apt to shed their fruit before ripening it are almond, apple, pomegranate, pear, and, above all, fig and date-palm; and men try to find the suitable remedies for this. This is the reason for the process called ‘caprification’; gall-insects come out of the wild figs which are hanging there, eat the tops of the cultivated figs, and so make them swell.” The growth of the pear on various soils and in diverse situations is compared; he makes mention of a “peculiar, red and hairy worm” which infested the pear of these old Greek orchards. In Pontus, it is stated, “pears and apples are abundant in a great variety of forms and are excellent.” “General diseases” are enumerated as “those of being worm-eaten, sun-scorched, and rot.” Certain affections due to season and situation are mentioned, as freezing, scorching, and injury from winds.
This is but a brief epitome of what Theophrastus writes of the pomology of the Greeks, and only topics in which the pear is specifically mentioned are set down and not all of these. By inference, one who reads Theophrastus might apply much more to the pear. Yet enough has been said to prove the point that pear culture was as well established in Greece 300 years B.C. as in 1900 years A.D. One leaves Theophrastus, satisfied that pear-growers of his day had about the same problems that growers have nowadays and solved them by the same sort of reasoning intelligence.
In crediting Theophrastus as the earliest writer on pomology, we may assume that there were earlier writers from whom he must have received much knowledge. Perhaps greater writers on botany and pomology preceded him, since he cites older authors on the same subjects whose books have been lost. His alone of the books of its kind have come down to us from ancient Greece. Theophrastus was the friend and pupil of Aristotle, another philosopher and prince of science, and both in turn were taught by Plato. Who shall say, then, from whence Theophrastus received his knowledge? Aristotle is said to have written two books on botany antedating the Enquiry into Plants of Theophrastus, neither of which has survived the passing centuries. May not these great minds have been indebted to authors whose books and names have perished? These speculations serve to remind us again that the beginnings of botany and pomology long antedate written records.
There were Greeks who wrote on agriculture after Theophrastus, and before the Roman treatises on farm management, a few of which are to be mentioned in the next topic. Of books, as monuments of vanished minds, however, there are none to indicate the activities of Greek farmers who wrote, but there are citations to show that ancient Greek literature on farming was voluminous. Thus, Marcus Terentius Varro (B.C. 116–28), called “the most learned of the Romans,” in his eightieth year wrote a book on Roman agriculture for the guidance