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.

Between Homer and Theophrastus nearly 600 years intervene, in all of which time traces of the pear are few and uncertain. But from Theophrastus, to whom botanists accord the title “Father of Botany,” we know that orcharding had been making progress, and that the pear, among other fruits, must have been as well known and nearly as well cared for in his time, 370-286 B.C., as in this twentieth century. All the expedients we now know to assist nature to bring pears to perfection, save spraying and cross-pollination, were known to Theophrastus, although of course the evolution from the wild state as indicated by number and diversity of kinds had not progressed so far. Out of one of the books of Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, a very good treatise on the pear might be compiled and one better worth following than many of his more modern imitators. To quote Theophrastus at length is impossible, but space must be given to a summary of what he says about pears.

Theophrastus distinguishes between wild and cultivated pears and says that the cultivated forms have received names. He speaks of the propagation of pears from seeds, roots, and cuttings and makes plain that plants grown from seed “lose the character of their kind and produce a degenerate kind.” Grafting is described. The nature of the ground is said to regulate the distance for planting pears, and the lower slopes of hills are recommended as the best sites for pear orchards. Root-pruning, girdling the stems, and driving iron pegs in the trunk and other methods of “punishing” trees are said to hasten the bearing time. Even the necessity of cross-pollination is recognized though of course the reasons for it are not known. Thus, Theophrastus says: “Trees which are apt to shed their fruit before ripening it are almond, apple, pomegranate, pear, and, above all, fig and date-palm; and men try to find the suitable remedies for this. This is the reason for the process called ‘caprification’; gall-insects come out of the wild figs which are hanging there, eat the tops of the cultivated figs, and so make them swell.” The growth of the pear on various soils and in diverse situations is compared; he makes mention of a “peculiar, red and hairy worm” which infested the pear of these old Greek orchards. In Pontus, it is stated, “pears and apples are abundant in a great variety of forms and are excellent.” “General diseases” are enumerated as “those of being worm-eaten, sun-scorched, and rot.” Certain affections due to season and situation are mentioned, as freezing, scorching, and injury from winds.

This is but a brief epitome of what Theophrastus writes of the pomology of the Greeks, and only topics in which the pear is specifically mentioned are set down and not all of these. By inference, one who reads Theophrastus might apply much more to the pear. Yet enough has been said to prove the point that pear culture was as well established in Greece 300 years B.C. as in 1900 years A.D. One leaves Theophrastus, satisfied that pear-growers of his day had about the same problems that growers have nowadays and solved them by the same sort of reasoning intelligence.

In crediting Theophrastus as the earliest writer on pomology, we may assume that there were earlier writers from whom he must have received much knowledge. Perhaps greater writers on botany and pomology preceded him, since he cites older authors on the same subjects whose books have been lost. His alone of the books of its kind have come down to us from ancient Greece. Theophrastus was the friend and pupil of Aristotle, another philosopher and prince of science, and both in turn were taught by Plato. Who shall say, then, from whence Theophrastus received his knowledge? Aristotle is said to have written two books on botany antedating the Enquiry into Plants of Theophrastus, neither of which has survived the passing centuries. May not these great minds have been indebted to authors whose books and names have perished? These speculations serve to remind us again that the beginnings of botany and pomology long antedate written records.

There were Greeks who wrote on agriculture after Theophrastus, and before the Roman treatises on farm management, a few of which are to be mentioned in the next topic. Of books, as monuments of vanished minds, however, there are none to indicate the activities of Greek farmers who wrote, but there are citations to show that ancient Greek literature on farming was voluminous. Thus, Marcus Terentius Varro (B.C. 116-28), called “the most learned of the Romans,” in his eightieth year wrote a book on Roman agriculture for the guidance of his wife in the practice of farming. Learned old Varro believed in “book farming,” or science with practice, of which we hear so much nowadays. He begins his treatise by invoking Greek and Roman deities to aid his wife, and names fifty monographs on husbandry written by Greeks, in which, he tells this early farmerette, she will find all of the practical information she needs. This is but one of several sources from which we learn that in the making of books on agriculture there was no end in the heroic days of Greece as in modern times.

THE PEAR IN ANCIENT ROME

Italy, by common consent, is the garden of the world, and it would be strange if the pear had not been taken to this favored land with the earliest tillers of orchards, or if attempts had not been made to domesticate the wild pears found in the northern mountains. And so we may assume, with no very definite proofs, that the pear was cultivated in ancient Rome some hundreds of years before the Christian era. In Cato, the first book written in Latin on agriculture, the pear is discussed, and six varieties are named and described. What had this illustrious Roman, known generally as a statesman and scholar, to do with pomology?

Marcus Portius Cato (B.C. 235-150), called the elder Cato, besides serving Rome in state and army, wrote a treatise on farming, fruit-growing, and gardening, which, first of its kind in Latin literature, may be read with greater profit than the works of most writers of our own day in agriculture. Cato was preeminently the first agricultural philosopher, and no one who has followed him has packed more shrewd agricultural philosophy in a book than he. But it is as a pomologist that Cato concerns us most at this time. Cato describes almost every method of propagating, grafting, caring for, and keeping fruits known to twentieth-century fruit-growers. He describes, also, many varieties of fruits, as well as of vegetables, grains, and breeds of farm animals. Among Cato’s fruits are six varieties of pears. What is of especial interest in this history is that Cato writes as if the practices of agriculture and the plants and animals he described were not only established but ancient in his time.

Varro, whose standing as a Roman writer on agriculture is noted above, says nothing of varieties of pears, but gives directions for grafting pear-trees, among other methods that of inarching of which he seems the first ancient writer to take note, thereby justifying, in small degree, it is true, the appellation often given him, “the most modern of all the ancients.” Varro also tells how pears should be stored. While, therefore, he says nothing that