Lastly, the pear falls short of the apple as a commercial product because it is not nearly so satisfactory to handle as a commercial crop. Pears are more difficult to pack, and do not stand transportation as well as apples. They cannot be kept in cold storage nearly as long, and decay more quickly when brought into warmer temperatures. The demand for evaporated pears is slight in comparison with that for evaporated apples, and although perry, the expressed juice of pears, is quite as refreshing as cider, this by-product of the fruit is little known in America. As a prepared product, the pear surpasses the apple only as a canned fruit. Failing in comparison with the apple, as a commercial product, pears are largely left to fruit connoisseurs, and with these a generation ago the pear was the fruit of fruits, many splendid collections of it having been made in regions where pears could be grown. With the expansion of commercial fruit-growing, collections of pears, and with them many choice varieties, have gone out of cultivation--more is the pity--and pear-growing has expanded least of all the fruit industries in the United States. With this brief discussion of the present status of pear-culture in this country, we can proceed to trace the history of the pear with more exactness by reason of knowing its limitations under American conditions. The peach is the only hardy fruit that belongs to the heroic age of Spanish discovery in the New World. Pears, apples, plums, and cherries came to the new continent with the French and English. The early records of fruit-growing in America show that the pear came among the first luxuries of the land in the French and English settlements from Canada to Florida. Pioneers in any country begin at once to cultivate the soil for the means of sustenance. Naturally, cereals and easily-grown nutritious vegetables receive attention first as giving more immediate harvests and more sustaining fare to supplement game and fish. Agriculture and gardening usually precede orcharding, and this was the case in early settlements in America, but not long. The first generation born in colonial America knew and used all of the hardy fruits from Europe; as many records attest, and of which there is confirmatory proof with the pear in many ancient pear-trees of great size near the old settlements, some of which were planted by the first settlers from Europe. Of pears, many notable trees planted by the hands of the first English and French who crossed the seas to settle the new country were conspicuous monuments in various parts of America in the memory of men still living, if, indeed, some of the old trees themselves are not still standing.