The pear is one of the "gifts of the gods" which Homer tells us grew in the garden of Alcinöus. It is certain, therefore, whether or not this is the earliest mention of the pear in Greek literature, that in Homer's time, nearly one thousand years before the Christian era, the pear was cultivated in Greece. As this garden of Alcinöus furnishes the earliest noteworthy landmarks of the pear, and is moreover the most renowned of heroic times, an early paradise of trees, vines, and herbs, it is worth while to take a look at it with a view of discovering the status of the pear at this early date. Stripped of the harmonious rhyme and pleasing rhythm of Homer's poetry, the garden is described in English prose as follows: "And without the court-yard hard by the door is a great garden, of four plough-gates, and a hedge runs round on either side. And there grow tall trees blossoming, pear-trees and pomegranates, and apple-trees with bright fruit, and sweet figs, and olives in their bloom. The fruit of these trees never perisheth, neither faileth winter or summer, enduring through all the year. Evermore the West Wind blowing brings some fruits to birth and ripens others. Pear upon pear waxes old, and apple on apple, yea, and cluster ripens upon cluster of the grape, and fig upon fig. There too hath he a faithful vineyard planted, whereof the one part is being dried by the heat, a sunny plot on level ground, while other grapes men are gathering, and yet others they are treading in the wine-press. In the foremost row are unripe grapes that cast the blossom, and others there be that are growing black to vintaging. There too, skirting the furthest line, are all manner of garden beds, planted trimly, that are perpetually fresh, and therein are two fountains of water, whereof one scatters his streams all about the garden, and the other runs over against it beneath the threshold of the court-yard, and issues by the lofty house, and thence did the townsfolk draw water.--These were the splendid gifts of the gods in the palace of Alcinöus.[1]" Divested of the spell with which the poet's flight of imagination bewitches us, we find that the wonderful garden of Alcinöus is, after all, rather trifling, probably of small extent, and containing an orchard, a vineyard, garden beds and two fountains of water, which brings us to the conclusion that this renowned garden would cut but a sorry figure beside modern gardens; but, on the other hand, we are made sure that certain fruits, among them the pear, were commonly cultivated in Greece a thousand years before Christ's time. There is no hint in Homer as to whether there were as yet varieties of pears, or as to whether fruits were as yet pruned, grafted, fertilized and otherwise cared for. For indications that these arts of the orchard were under practice, we must pass on to the writings of another great Greek, Theophrastus.