of the apple, the seeds of most European fruits sown in America have in the course of time originated new varieties peculiarly adapted to that country, and far more highly esteemed there than the sorts from which they were produced. The prince of American pears, a variety exhibiting a rare combination of virtues, the richest and most exquisitely flavoured of fruits being borne on the healthiest and hardiest of trees, is the Seckel Pear, so general a favourite that no garden is considered complete without it. Small sized, dumpy in shape, and dull in colour, it has been called the ugliest of fruits, but if we may so far adapt the old saying as to admit that "Handsome is that handsome tastes," no deficiencies in beauty will be perceived when once the palate revels in the honied spicy richness of the Seckel Pear, its flavour, quite peculiar to itself, being generally pronounced to be unequalled by any of its European kindred.
The pear is peculiar in one respect, for, unlike nearly all other fruits, its being fresh-gathered is by no means a recommendation, most varieties being much finer in flavour if plucked early in the season and ripened in the house than if suffered to mature on the tree; and many which appear very dry and second-rate when ripened in the open air not only keep good much longer but attain first-rate quality when gathered while unripe and shut up for weeks indoors. They however require warmth, for a pear which is of melting consistency after having been ex posed for some time to a temperature of 60 or 70 degrees would prove quite tough if left until wanted in a cold apartment. A German writer recommends packing pears between feather beds as a good mode of ripening them, but this would hardly suit English notions, and the Guernsey method of exposing them to the sun shine on the shelves of a greenhouse commends itself as seeming the most natural and pleasant way of bringing the fruit to healthy maturity. The chief use of pears is as a dessert fruit, but they are also stewed or baked, many of the hard kinds being appropriated exclusively to this use, but most keeping pears, such as the Swan's Egg, &c., are also excellent for baking, for when simply heaped into a dish and put in the oven their own juice forms a rich syrup as sweet as though much sugar had been used, and even windfalls and damaged fruit may thus be turned to good account with little trouble and no expense. In Germany, Russia, and yet more in France pears are also dried; the common sort, sold about the streets in Paris, being merely slowly baked on boards in ovens after the bread has been withdrawn, but their juice being thus lost, they are far inferior to the more carefully prepared best sort, which are first boiled until a little soft, then peeled and put on a dish till the syrup drains from them; afterwards placed on wicker mats in an oven for twelve hours, then soaked in this syrup, to which a little sugar and brandy has been added, till their own juice is thus reabsorbed, after which they are replaced in the oven twice or thrice until they become quite firm and of a rich transparent chestnut colour, when they are packed in paper-lined boxes for homo use or exportation. In hotter countries fires and ovens are not needed for this purpose, for the traveller Burchell mentions having, when in the interior of South Africa, stocked himself before crossing the desert with dried pears, "the manner of preserving which consisted in merely drying them whole and unpeeled in the sun, and afterwards pressing them flat, by which simple process they keep in perfection for more than a twelve-month, as I afterwards learnt by experience, and therefore can recommend them as a valuable addition to the stores of a traveller."
As the apple yields its cider so too does the pear afford a special beverage, less wholesome than the former, but even more agreeable, and therefore scarcely less esteemed, especially as it is made in far less quantities and has there fore more claim to the merit of rarity, its manufacture being now chiefly limited to the cider districts of England and France. Pears for the press may be either large or small, but the more austere the taste the better the liquor; wild pears are found not unsuitable, and the fruit which is esteemed best for this use is so unfit for any other that not only are they quite uneatable by man, but it is said that even hungry swine will hardly so much as smell to them; and it is a curious fact, though not without its parallel in the annals of vegetable peculiarities, that the unexpressed juice of the perry pear is so harsh and acrid as to cause great heat and long-continued irritation of the throat if an attempt be made to eat it, yet no sooner is it separated from the pulp by simple pressure than it at once becomes rich and sweet with no more roughness than is agreeable to most palates. As pears were deemed by the Romans an antidote against poisonous fungi, so perry is still reckoned the best thing to be taken after a surfeit of mushrooms. Though it will not keep nearly so long as cider, it yet contains more alcohol, and also makes better vinegar, while the residue left after pressure serves very well for fuel, for which purpose that of cider is useless. The bark of the pear tree yields a yellow dye, and its wood is eminently serviceable to Art, being much employed not only for making parts of musical instruments but also to furnish blocks