ELIZABETH

1. Mag. Hort. 8:57. 1842. 2. Ibid. 13:63, fig. 6. 1847. 3. Leroy Dict. Pom. 3:126, fig. 1869. 4. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 23. 1897. Manning's Elizabeth. 5. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 385. 1845. 6. Hovey Fr. Am. 2:41, Pl. 1851. 7. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 231. 1854. 8. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 810, fig. 1869. Elizabeth de Manning. 9. Mas Le Verger 2:105, fig. 51. 1866-73. 10. Guide Prat. 93, 269. 1876. Nina. 11. Hogg Fruit Man. 623. 1884. 12. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 258. 1889.

Elizabeth is among the best summer pears for eastern America, either for home consumption or for the markets. The characters which commend it are: handsome, well-flavored fruits; and vigorous, hardy, productive trees, which are as resistant to blight as those of any other European pear, and which come in bearing early and bear annually. Faults are: the fruits are small, a fault that can be overcome somewhat by thinning; they are a little coarse in texture of flesh, which is a little too gritty; and the flavor, while good for an early pear, is not as sweet and rich as might be desired. The trees are nearly flawless, failing, if at all, in not attaining as great size as some other inhabitants of pear orchards. The crop is often borne in clusters — a defect by reason of which the fruits are so often small. But even with these defects, we must end as we began with the statement that this is one of the best summer pears.

In the year 1819, Van Mons established his famous nursery at Louvain, Belgium, and in the years 1830 and 1831 he sent from there two consignments of pear cions to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, both of which were unfortunately lost in turn on the way. Three years later, Kenrick, Manning, and Dearborn, Massachusetts horticulturists, requested him to forward another collection. In the successive springs of 1835 and 1836, he sent two more collections which safely arrived in due course, though a large proportion of the cions died. These collections comprised originally about 150 named and 100 seedling unnamed varieties, and Van Mons granted Manning permission to name any of the latter that might prove worthy of cultivation. No. 154 of these, Mr. Manning¹ named Elizabeth (Van Mons). Later on it was disseminated as Manning's Elizabeth, and soon after the name was shortened to Elizabeth. The variety was placed in the fruit-list of the American Pomological Society in 1854.

Tree small, upright, dense-topped, hardy, very productive; trunk slender; branches brownish-green, partly overspread with thin, gray scarf-skin, marked by conspicuous, oval lenticels; branchlets slender, long, reddish-brown mingled with green, new growth exceptionally red, dull, smooth, glabrous except on the younger wood, with obscure, raised lenticels.

Leaf-buds small, short, pointed, plump, free. Leaves 3 in. long, 1½ in. wide, stiff; apex variable; margin almost entire; petiole 2 in. long, slender, reddish-green; stipules very small and slender when present. Flower-buds small, short, conical, plump, free, singly on short spurs; flowers early, showy, 1¼ in. across, in dense clusters, average 8 buds in a cluster; pedicels 1 in. long, lightly pubescent.

Fruit ripe in late August; small, 2½ in. long, 2¼ in. wide, obovate-obtuse-pyriform, symmetrical, uniform; stem 1 in. long, thick, curved; cavity acuminate, shallow, narrow, symmetrical, often lipped; calyx large, almost closed; lobes separated at the base, short, narrow, acuminate; basin shallow, obtuse, gently furrowed and wrinkled; skin tough, characteristically rough, glossy; color bright yellow, with a lively, red cheek, mottled with brownish, minute specks; dots numerous, very small, conspicuous, russet or brown; flesh tinged with yellow, slightly granular under the skin, strongly granular at the center, tender and melting, very juicy, sweet, vinous, aromatic; quality very good. Core large, closed, with clasping core-lines; calyx-tube short, wide, conical; seeds wide, plump, acute.

¹ The fame of Robert Manning as an accurate and discriminating American pomologist will long endure. Few Americans, one conceives, as his life is reviewed, have rendered greater service in any field of the nation's agriculture. The quantity of his work was not remarkably large, but the quality was superfine. Systematic pomology in particular owes him much for his painstaking descriptions of fruits, and his corrections in nomenclature. Born in Salem, Mass., July 18, 1784, he made the town of his birth famous as a pomological center in America, where, at the time of his death, October 10, 1842, his garden probably contained a larger collection of fruits than had ever before been brought together in America. Manning began collecting fruits in 1823 when he established his "Pomological Garden" at Salem for the purpose of introducing and testing new varieties of fruits. He attempted to bring together all of the varieties of fruits that would thrive in eastern Massachusetts, and when his garden was fullest had about 2000 fruits, of which 1000 kinds were pears, to which fruit he gave most attention. He had many English, French, and Belgian correspondents from whom he received the most notable fruits grown in their countries. He is said to have had a most remarkable memory and could carry in mind the names, tree-habits, and qualities of any fruit he had ever seen and could identify it at sight. In whatever group of pomologists he chanced to be, his identifications and decisions on nomenclature were accepted as correct. Small wonder, therefore, that the Book of Fruits, published by Manning in 1838, at once took the place of authority for descriptions of tree-fruits and for such small-fruits, trees, and shrubs as the author described. It was the first, and is almost the only, American pomology in which the descriptions were all made with fruit in hand. The author intended this book to be the first of a series, but the books to follow never appeared. He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Pear-growers are indebted to Manning for the work he did in testing the seedlings sent out by Van Mons, the famous Belgian breeder, most of whose pears came to American orchards through the agency of the Salem Pomological Garden. He also received and introduced valuable pears from the London Horticultural Society. His achievements mark Manning among the most notable American pomologists, of whom no other labored as devotedly for the attainment of better pears.

— U.P. Hedrick, The Pears of New York (1921)