Very similar to Clapp Favorite and Bartlett, and not as good as either in fruit-characters, Souvenir du Congrès hardly merits a place in American pomology. The crop ripens between those of the two sorts with which it has been compared, and the fruits are larger and often handsomer. The fruits are said to be larger and of better quality when the tree is double-worked on the quince. The tree is remarkable for vigor, hardihood to cold, and healthfulness; and bears so abundantly that the crop must be thinned to prevent breaking of branches. The variety grows especially well in New York, and is deserving a place in home orchards and in fruit-collections. The accompanying color-plate illustrates the size, shape, and color of this pear remarkably well. Souvenir du Congrès owes its origin to M. François Morel, Lyons, France. M. Morel grafted one of his pear-trees with cions taken from several other varieties, including Bartlett, and from the tree thus grafted he obtained fruit, seeds of which he sowed in 1852. One of the resultant trees bore fruit in 1863, and the pears had so many earmarks of Bartlett that it was at once assumed to be a seedling of that variety. The tree continued to do well and in due course the variety was judged to be worthy of dissemination by the Rhône Horticultural Society. Later, M. Morel dedicated the new pear to the Pomological Congress of France. The variety was introduced in the United States about 1870. The American Pomological Society placed Souvenir du Congrès on its fruit-catalog list in 1875. Tree medium in size and vigor, upright-spreading, open-topped, very productive; branches zigzag, dull reddish-brown, heavily overspread with ash-gray scarf-skin, marked by small, raised lenticels; branchlets thick, long, reddish-brown, overspread with dull gray mingled with green, smooth, glabrous, with few small, slightly raised lenticels. Leaf-buds small, short, pointed, plump, free. Leaves 1-7/8 in. long, 1-1/2 in. wide, roundish-oval, leathery; apex abruptly pointed; margin tipped with very few glands, finely serrate; petiole 1-1/2 in. long, glabrous, tinged with red. Flower-buds short, conical or pointed, plump, free, arranged singly on very short spurs or branchlets; flowers with a disagreeable odor, 1-1/8 in. across, pinkish-white as the buds unfold, becoming whitish, in dense clusters, 6 to 8 buds in a cluster; pedicels 3/4 in. long, thick, heavily pubescent, light green.