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.