Another living monument marked the beginnings of pear-culture in
America until 1866, when the trunk, little more than a shell, was
broken down by a dray, having furnished shade and shelter in a New
York garden for 220 years. This garden was laid out by the redoubtable
Peter Stuyvesant who took the reins of government in New Amsterdam
in 1647, at which time this pear-tree was planted. The pear was a
Summer Bon Chrétien, said to have been imported from Holland in a tub.
Stuyvesant's garden, kept in a high state of cultivation by forty or
fifty negro slaves, was called the "Bouwery," now the Bowery, and the
pear-tree in it stood at what is now the corner of Third Avenue and
Thirteenth Street. No doubt other pears were imported from Holland at
the same time, and from these and seeds and sprouts, this fruit was
started in the Dutch settlements up and down the Hudson, where the pear
even to this day is a favorite fruit, finding here a more congenial
soil and climate than in any other part of America.
Soon after Governor Stuyvesant planted his bowery of fruits, flowers,
and vegetables, the French laid out orchards in the vicinity of New
York City. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, many
Huguenots fled to America. In 1689, some of these French _emigrés_
settled at New Rochelle, New York, and on Long Island. The trees grown
by the Huguenots were usually grafted, the parent plants having been
brought from France. No doubt, it was from these importations that
White Doyenné, Brown Beurré, St. Germain, Virgouleuse, and many other
old French sorts that seem to have been in America from time immemorial
came.
However, the pear, in common with other fruits, was more largely grown
from seeds in these pioneer days than from buds or grafts. Fruits
were known and grown as species and not as varieties almost wholly in
America until the nineteenth century. The sale of budded or grafted
trees began in New York, so far as records show, with the establishment
of a nursery at Flushing, Long Island, in 1730, by Robert Prince.
This nursery afterwards became the famous Linnaean Botanic Garden.
At what date Prince began to offer grafted pears for sale cannot now
be ascertained, but advertisements appearing in 1767, 1771, and 1790
offer named varieties at these dates. The following is a list of pears
offered by the Princes in 1771:[11]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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