This old winter pear is nearly lost to cultivation, but is worth
growing because of the high quality of the fruit and because the
pear comes in season in early winter when there are few others. The
pears are not attractively colored, although in this character the
illustration does not do the fruit justice. The fruits are rich and
sugary without the least trace of acid, but when poorly grown are
often astringent. All agree that the quality is better in fruit from
dwarf trees in which form the variety grows very well; and that it is
better, also, when grown on heavy soils than on light ones. The fruits
keep and ship remarkably well. The trees are neither very large nor
vigorous, but are usually productive. The variety is in disrepute in
many localities because the crop does not always ripen well.
The Abbé of Mons, M. Hardenpont, a pioneer in pear-raising and a worthy
forerunner of Van Mons, raised this pear from seed about 1750 in his
garden at Mons, Belgium. The variety was introduced into France in
1806 by Louis Noisette, who had found it in the gardens of the Duc
d'Arenberg. In France it was known, therefore, as _Beurré d'Arenberg_,
and consequently became much confused with the true _Beurré d'Arenberg_
raised by Monseigneur Deschamps. In order to overcome this confusion
the name of the variety raised by M. Hardenpont was changed by a number
of prominent Frenchmen to Beurré d'Hardenpont, but the variety has
always been grown under both names in France. In 1820, M. Parmentier
of Enghien, Belgium, sent this pear to England under the name _Glou
Morceau_. (Glou, in the Walloon language, meaning _delicious_ or
_dainty_; morceau, French, _morsel_ or _bit_; hence, the translation
may be Delicious Morsel or Dainty Bit.) _Glou Morceau_ has long been
the popular name of the variety in England and America although, as
Bunyard says, "It is regrettable that the memory of the pioneer of
Pear raising, l'Abbé Hardenpont, is not commemorated in this fruit."
Glou Morceau was brought to America within a few years after its
introduction in England and rapidly found favor here as attested by
leading American pomologists. In 1862 the American Pomological Society
added the variety to its catalog-list of fruits under the name _Glou
Morceau_ as it has since remained.
Tree medium in size and vigor, spreading, dense-topped, rapid-growing,
productive; trunk stocky; branches thick, reddish-brown, nearly
covered with gray scarf-skin, marked with numerous large lenticels;
branchlets slender, short, light greenish-brown, overspread with gray
scarf-skin, smooth, glabrous, with numerous, small, conspicuous,
raised lenticels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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