This pear is one of the oldest of all varieties. It is impossible to state whether it originated in France or was brought to that country from Italy. A German, Henri Manger, who studied the origin of fruits, states in his _Systematische Pomologie_, 1780, that the White Doyenné originated with the Romans; he considered it to be their _Sementinum_. Agostino Gallo, 1559, called the variety _Pera Ghiacciuola_. In 1660, Claude Saint-Etienne described a _Poire de Neige_. Both of these descriptions represent White Doyenné. In the sixteenth century and for part of the seventeenth, the name _Ghiacciuola_ was accepted for the variety in France with the synonym _Saint-Michel_. Leroy states that Le Lectier, in his catalog of the fruit trees which he grew at Orléans in 1628, changed the name to _Giaccole de Rome_, and Nicholas de Bonnefonds modified it in the first edition of his _Jardinier Francais_, 1652, to _Giacciola di Roma_. English pomologists have mentioned this pear under a variety of names since early in the seventeenth century. The names _Poire Doyenné_ and _White Doyenné_ have been most generally applied to it. The date of its introduction to America is not known, but it was probably brought to this country by the earliest French settlers. The first American catalogs mentioned the variety, and it was extensively grown in the vicinity of New York and Long Island where it was commonly called the _Virgalieu_ pear. In the neighborhood of Boston, the name _Saint-Michael_ was applied to it; while around Philadelphia it was called the _Butter Pear_. For nearly a century, however, the variety has been most generally known in this country as White Doyenné. At the Convention of Fruit-Growers held in New York, in 1848, White Doyenné was included in a short list of pears recommended for general cultivation. Since that date, the American Pomological Society has given the variety a place in its fruit-catalog. Tree large, vigorous, upright, vasiform, hardy, very productive; trunk stocky, somewhat smooth; branches thick, dark gray, with many large lenticels; branchlets thick, reddish-brown, smooth, glabrous, with small, very slightly raised lenticels. Leaf-buds obtuse, pointed, appressed. Leaves 2-1/2 in. long, 1-3/4 in. wide, flattened, leathery; apex taper-pointed; margin finely serrate; petiole 1-1/2 in. long, slender. Flower-buds large, long, conical or pointed, free; flowers early, 1-1/8 in. across, in dense clusters, 7 or 8 buds in a cluster; pedicels 7/8 in. long, slender, pubescent, light green.