The Lost Pears of New York

Abstract

"The Pears of New York" published by U.P. Hedrick in 1921 for the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, was the standard American reference work on pear cultivars in the United States during the twentieth century. No other publication since has covered pears in such a comprehensive fashion. Hedrick described many hundreds of pear cultivars grown in America, and selected the 78 most important cultivars for complete, detailed, historical treatment including full page color illustrations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis, Oregon is growing 62 of Hedrick's 78 select cultivars in their preservation orchard. This paper describes the 16 remaining cultivars in an attempt to locate the lost germplasm.