Pears for Posterity

[lamb abbey orchards]

In Danvers, MA there lives a scraggly old pear tree that's estimated to be nearly 380 years old. It's known as the Endicott Pear, named after John Endicott, the first governor of Massachusetts ( See Endicott Pear). And it still produces fruit. As I begin the process of creating my own heirloom orchard from the ground up, the idea often crosses my mind of who eventually will be eating the fruit from my trees long after I've become wormfood myself. I'd initially thought in terms of decades; now centuries and generations seem quite plausible, at least regarding pears. "Plant a pear for an heir," someone recently advised me. It's heartwarming to think that 100 or 200 years from now a pear cobbler could be made using pears from a tree I grafted in my kitchen on a blustery Winter day in 2005.

There are a lot of varieties of heirloom fruit I'm excited to be putting into an orchard. By volume, most of what will be grown are apples--we're attempting 120 varieties--but there will be quite a variety of pears and plums, a couple of peaches and an assortment of uncommon apricots and cherries. There will even be three delightful Welsh perry pears, if they can make their way through USDA Quarantine without a hitch. We'll see what grows out here on the Maine coast. The pears are of particular fascination though. I think part of it is because one rarely encounters a pear selection beyond the standard Bartlett, Anjou, Bosc and occasional Seckel. How can the romanticist in each of us not be seduced by pears with exotic names like Fondante de Moulins-Lille, Bergamotte d’Été, Louise Bonne d'Avranches or Duchesse d'Angoulême, especially when it's described as "melting, extremely juicy, very sweet, slightly acidulous, with a rich aromatic flavor"? My dear Aunt Angela, a devout Catholic and apotheosis of self-restraint, receives a box of Doyenné du Comice pears from me each Christmas. In her words, one of these ripe fruit dribbling down her chin is "about as close as I’ve come to God." Who knew Divine Intervention was to be found in a Harry & David catalog?

I recently discovered that there are only seven acres of pears currently being grown in Maine. Just SEVEN. Connecticut devotes nearly 250 acres annually; Oregon, over 19,400. I was curious if the lack of pears up here was because they simply don't adapt well to our Zone 5 coastal Maine weather and growing conditions. So I made a call up the coast to fruit aficionado Mark Fulford (he's trialed as many as 40 varieties on his farm) to get his opinion. His thoughts? Most heirloom pears do quite well up here, but many of the very best are too tender to ship and people in general simply aren't educated enough about the more exotic varieties to have much interest in them. And, as is often the refrain in these parts, if it ain't broke . . .

In 2004, not long after I decided to close my eyes and jump into the orchard project, I walked into the island grocery to discover a cache of Seckel pears that had just been added to the otherwise meagre and predictable produce section. I grabbed a dozen of them, having read the Seckel is the definitive sugar pear. On my counter these beautiful hard little gems sat, day after day, until they finally had the slightest give to them. Flavor? Like old snow. It was such a disappointment. They were clearly picked way too young, probably in anticipation of being shipped across the country or beating another grower to market.

Maybe the time is ripe for local growers to make these great old pear varieties available to the foodies of New England. Any takers?

Edited May 7, 2006 by lamb abbey orchards (log)

[russ parsons]

it's interesting: actually all of the commercial pear varieties are legitimate heirlooms. the bartlett is the same as the british williams, the seckel is an american sport found by pioneers, then of course, the bosc, comice and the anjou come from the great french pear frenzy of the 1700s. attempts to introduce new pears have met with indifference, at best, though you do sometimes see red anjous and barts. when i asked some university pear breeders about it, they said there simply wasn't enough money in pears to warrant the cost of developing and breaking in a new product.

i think pears have been overshadowed mainly because they come into season at the same time as apples. they are certainly NOT too tender to ship, as they have to be harvested rock-hard and ripened off of the tree.

pears used to be important in the northeast and there's no reason you shouldn't be able to do something with them, particularly through direct marketing. i think the reason most orchards fell out was because they couldn't compete on a cost basis with the oregon and washington growers, who because of a just about perfect climate, were able to plant massive acreage in the late 1800s and whup up on everybody else thanks to economies of scale.

if you want more information on obscure varieties of pears that might do well in your area, try to find a copy of UP Hedrick's Pears of New York, published in the 1920s. it's very pricey--$100 and up--but it's really amazing. hundreds of different varieties (with gorgeous botanical illustrations--hence the high price).

[slbunge]

Your post brought to mind an aricle I read in the NewYorker last fall. John Seabrook wrote about an Italian woman who is tracking down Renaissance varieties of pears and attempting to form a 'collection' to keep them from disappearing.

I don't have a copy but Google turned up that it was in the September 5, 2005 issue on pp. 102-108.

Good luck with your Orchard. Where are you on the Maine coast?

Edit: Oops. I just noticed you put your location in your user information.

Edited May 8, 2006 by slbunge (log)

[lamb abbey orchards]

it's interesting: actually all of the commercial pear varieties are legitimate heirlooms. the bartlett is the same as the british williams, the seckel is an american sport found by pioneers, then of course, the bosc, comice and the anjou come from the great french pear frenzy of the 1700s. attempts to introduce new pears have met with indifference, at best, though you do sometimes see red anjous and barts. when i asked some university pear breeders about it, they said there simply wasn't enough money in pears to warrant the cost of developing and breaking in a new product.

i think pears have been overshadowed mainly because they come into season at the same time as apples. they are certainly NOT too tender to ship, as they have to be harvested rock-hard and ripened off of the tree.

pears used to be important in the northeast and there's no reason you shouldn't be able to do something with them, particularly through direct marketing. i think the reason most orchards fell out was because they couldn't compete on a cost basis with the oregon and washington growers, who because of a just about perfect climate, were able to plant massive acreage in the late 1800s and whup up on everybody else thanks to economies of scale.

if you want more information on obscure varieties of pears that might do well in your area, try to find a copy of UP Hedrick's Pears of New York, published in the 1920s. it's very pricey--$100 and up--but it's really amazing. hundreds of different varieties (with gorgeous botanical illustrations--hence the high price).

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Russ:

Thanks for all of the great information. Agreed, the major pear varieties currently on the market are indeed old, old varieties. I'm guessing their predominance in the market is also very much attributed to the fact these varieties are good producers and don't have the disease susceptability that many varieties do (i.e. fireblight). The only exception to this that I'm aware of is the Comice (Royal Riviera) which is quite finicky and tough to grow, but Harry & David seems to have cracked this nut.

I picked up a copy of The Book of Pears from amazon.com a year ago and found it to be an amazing little guide (and inexpensive, too) to the world of pears. I will look for a used copy of UP Hedrick's book too There are many old pears that are just sublime. Their flavor and texture and honeyed-sweetness would even exceed a perfectly ripened Comice. But they're quite rare and virtually impossible to find either because they don't ship well, don't have a long storage life, are too small, or because of light cropping are simply too expensive to produce in volume. The White Doyenne is a classic example. I believe it's Alice Waters' (Chez Panisse) favorite pear, but you'll never find it in a grocery store. You've got to know someone who's growing it. I'm growing many of these wonderful old varieties, but unfortunately they probably won't be available to anyone via shipping. They'll need to be gotten at a farmer's market in Maine.

You bring up an interesting point about the cost of developing new pear varieties and the fact that pears are easily overshadowed by apples in the marketplace. One of things that surprised me when I ventured into the world of pears was their light productivity relative to apples. A standard pear tree (grown at about 300 trees per acre) will probably never produce more than 2 bushels of pears in a given year (roughly 90 lbs of fruit). A comparible sized apple tree (say on a MM 111 rootstock) can produce upwards of 8 bushels per tree at maturity. This disparity in productivity probably corresponds pretty closely to the disparity in profitability and monies put into new pear development. I don't know this for a fact. It's simply a hunch. But I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case.

Pick up a copy of The Book of Pears. I got a used copy through amazon.com for under $10. It's a great resource and the photography is beautiful, too.

John

Edited May 8, 2006 by lamb abbey orchards (log)

[lamb abbey orchards]

Your post brought to mind an aricle I read in the NewYorker last fall.  John Seabrook wrote about an Italian woman who is tracking down Renaissance varieties of pears and attempting to form a 'collection' to keep them from disappearing.

I don't have a copy but Google turned up that it was in the September 5, 2005 issue on pp. 102-108.

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Stephen:

Thanks for the mention of the New Yorker article. I wasn't aware of it. I'm going to track down a copy.

Cheers,

John

[russ parsons]

a couple of my favorite pear quotes (you can take them as related, if you like):

"In the long history of the pear the year of 1849 stands alone in importance. The historian will be reminded of the annexation of the Punjab, the accession of Francis Joseph, while in that year America hailed her 12th President in the person of Zachary Taylor. But what are such things to us? . . . Happy those who were present when Doyenne du Comice first gave up its luscious juice to man. Whom could they envy at that moment? Certainly not Zachary Taylor."

Edward Bunyard, "Anatomy of Dessert" 1934

"It is folly to suppose that every person who plants an orchard of pear trees succeeds. On the contrary, as far as my personal observation has extended, there has been more money lost than made, for I could enumerate five persons who have utterly failed to every one who has made pear culture profitable. It is during the time spent in wading in the dark, without any beacon to guide their steps, that the inexperienced suffer from a series of disappointments."

P.T. Quinn, "Pear Culture for Profit" 1869

[lamb abbey orchards]

a couple of my favorite pear quotes (you can take them as related, if you like):

"In the long history of the pear the year of 1849 stands alone in importance. The historian will be reminded of the annexation of the Punjab, the accession of Francis Joseph, while in that year America hailed her 12th President in the person of Zachary Taylor. But what are such things to us? . . . Happy those who were present when Doyenne du Comice first gave up its luscious juice to man. Whom could they envy at that moment? Certainly not Zachary Taylor."

Edward Bunyard, "Anatomy of Dessert" 1934

"It is folly to suppose that every person who plants an orchard of pear trees succeeds. On the contrary, as far as my personal observation has extended, there has been more money lost than made, for I could enumerate five persons who have utterly failed to every one who has made pear culture profitable. It is during the time spent in wading in the dark, without any beacon to guide their steps, that the inexperienced suffer from a series of disappointments."

P.T. Quinn, "Pear Culture for Profit" 1869

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Russ:

Those are both terrific! Thanks for sharing them. There is something quite amazing about eating a ripe comice and having all of that nectar run down your chin and down your arm.

The Quinn quote, albeit a bit gloomy, is going up on the wall in my office.

Cheers,

John

[russ parsons]

at various times in history there have been different agricultural crazes. pears had their day in 18th and 19th century France and then again in the us at the turn of the century. who knows why? it became fashionable for everyone to have an espaliered pear tree in their garden. i guess they have to taste better than tulip bulbs (obscure reference to another ag craze)

[ludja]

Interesting thread; thank you all for the lovely and informative posts.

Lamb Abbey Orchards, you mentioned a Welsh Perry Pear which sounds like it might come from Great Britain. Do you know much about pear varietals still being grown there or other places in Europe like France, Germany, Switzerland or Austria? Do they also have a smaller variety of pears available nowadays or has a greater diversity been maintained?

(I guess I should read the pear book you mentioned...)

[lamb abbey orchards]

Interesting thread; thank you all for the lovely and informative posts.

Lamb Abbey Orchards, you mentioned a Welsh Perry Pear which sounds like it might come from Great Britain.  Do you know much about pear varietals still being grown there or other places in Europe like France, Germany, Switzerland or Austria?  Do they also have a smaller variety of pears available nowadays or has a greater diversity been maintained?

(I guess I should read the pear book you mentioned...)

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Ludja:

I don't know much about the pears being grown abroad. Most of the varieties I'm growing are old French varieties, many of which I believe are still quite popular in France. Outside of France though, I couldn't tell you.

The Welsh Perry Pears I imported were ones that I discovered on the website for the Welsh Perry and Cider Society: www.welshcider.co.uk. One pear in particular just fascinates me. It's about the size of a ping pong ball (see photo above) and earned the comical name Bastard St. Brides because it was such a bastard to collect off the ground once it had fallen.

Thanks for the reply

John