Garber

Garber Pear

Origin/History

Garber is one of many seedlings of the Chinese Sand pear, raised by J. B. Garber, Columbia, Pennsylvania, sometime previous to 1880. It is supposed to be of hybrid origin. The variety was added to the American Pomological Society's list of recommended fruits in 1891, where it has since remained. It is also known in earlier references as Garber's Hybrid.

Tree

Medium in size, vigorous, upright-spreading, hardy, productive with age. Branches smooth, zigzag, reddish-brown, partly covered with grayish scarf-skin. Branchlets thick, with long internodes, smooth, glabrous, sprinkled with small, round, very conspicuous, raised lenticels. Leaf-buds small, short, pointed and with curved tips, appressed. Leaves 3½ in. long, 2½ in. wide, thick; apex taper-pointed; margin with very minute and reddish tips, finely serrate; petiole 2¼ in. long, thick. Flower-buds small, conical, sharply pointed, free.

The tree is hardy to heat and cold, and is much planted in the southern states and in the Mississippi Valley, North and South.

Fruit

Size: Large.

Form: Hedrick (1921) describes the fruit as usually roundish-oblong and tapering toward both ends. Thomas (1903) describes it as irregular oblate — these two characterizations conflict and both are recorded here.

Stem: 1 in. long, stout, obliquely set.

Cavity: Small, narrow, often deep and furrowed.

Calyx: Variable in size, partly open; lobes slender.

Basin: Broad, abrupt, deep, furrowed.

Skin: Hedrick (1921) gives the color as pale yellow, often with a brownish-red blush on the exposed cheek, with dots small, numerous, and russet. Thomas (1903) gives the color simply as russet brown — these descriptions conflict and both are recorded here.

Flesh/Flavor: White, granular, crisp but tender, juicy, neither sweet nor sour but with a peculiar, pleasant flavor. Quality inferior.

Season

Ripe September to October.

Uses

Quality is rated inferior. The fruit is edible out of hand but without distinction. The variety might be sparingly planted in New York as an ornamental, given the tree's hardiness and ornamental character rather than for fruit quality.

Other

Garber is closely related to Kieffer; only a few trivial differences separate them, and the fruits of both are poor. The pears ripen a week or two earlier than those of Kieffer, are a little rounder, flatter at the ends, and some say are a little better in quality — certainly they are no worse to eat out of hand. The variety is much favored in the southern states and the Mississippi Valley for its hardiness to both heat and cold.