The history of this variety is well known. The original tree grew on the place of General Hand, on the Conestoga River, about a mile from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and first fruited about 1790. Thirty years later a Mr. Miller procured grafts and succeeded in growing them. The variety was brought to the notice of fruit-growers by E. W. Carpenter, a nurseryman of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who sent grafts to his brother, S. Carpenter, of Lancaster, Ohio, and Robert Sinclair, Baltimore, Maryland. To the latter the introduction of the Hand has been incorrectly attributed. In 1856, Hand was listed in the fruit catalog of the American Pomological Society. Tree large, vigorous, spreading, dense-topped, hardy, variable in productiveness; branches dark ash-gray, rough, with small lenticels; branchlets of medium thickness and length, with long internodes, green changing to brownish-red, pubescent early in the season, becoming less so at maturity, with few, inconspicuous, small lenticels; leaf-buds large, long, obtuse, appressed; leaf-scars large. Leaves folded backward, obovate or oval, two and three-eighths inches wide, four and one-half inches long; upper surface dark green, rugose, slightly hairy, with a shallow, grooved midrib; lower surface pale green, pubescent; apex and base acute, margin finely and doubly serrate; petiole three-quarters inch long, thickish, pubescent, tinged red, with from one to four small, globose, greenish-brown glands on the stalk or base of the leaf. Blooming season intermediate in time, short; flowers appearing after the leaves, one and one-quarter inches across, white; borne sparsely on lateral buds and spurs; pedicels seven-eighths inch long, very pubescent, greenish; calyx-tube green, campanulate, pubescent; calyx-lobes broad, obtuse, pubescent on both surfaces, glandular-serrate, reflexed; petals roundish or obovate, slightly crenate, with short, broad claws; anthers yellowish; filaments three-eighths inch long; pistil lightly pubescent at the base, equal to the stamens in length.