Of these ancient pear-trees, New England furnishes the most notable monuments to mark the introduction of this fruit in the New World. Fortunately, their histories have been preserved in several horticultural annals, and of these accounts the fullest and best is by Robert Manning, Jr., in the Proceedings of the American Pomological Society for 1875, pages 100 to 103. Manning's notes throw so much light on the early history of the pear in New England, as well as upon the varieties then grown, that they are published in full. "The _Endicott_ Pear. The tradition in the Endicott family is that this tree was planted in 1630. It is said that the trees constituting the original orchard came over from England in June, in the Arabella with Governor Winthrop, or in one of the other ships of the fleet arriving at Salem in June. The farm on which the tree now stands, not having been granted to Endicott until 1632, it is not probable that the trees were planted there before that time, but they might have been at first set in the Governor's town garden at Salem, where the Rev. Francis Higginson, on his arrival in the summer of 1629, found a vine-yard already planted. The tradition further states that the Governor said that the tree was of the same date with a sun-dial which formerly stood near it. This dial, after having passed through the hands of the Rev. William Bentley, D.D., is now in the Essex Institute in Salem, and bears the date 1630, with the Governor's initials. The farm, which early bore the name of 'Orchard,' was occupied and cultivated by the Governor and his descendants for 184 years, from 1632 to 1816, and was held solely by the original grant until 1828, a period of 196 years. Under these circumstances the history of the tree is more likely to have been handed down correctly than if the estate had changed hands. It is certain that Governor Endicott was early engaged in propagating trees, for in a letter to John Winthrop in 1644, he speaks of having at least 500 trees burnt by his children setting fire near them, and, in a letter to John Winthrop, Jr., a year later, of being engaged to pay for 1500 trees.