WILDER EARLY

1. Can. Hort. 12:286, fig. 73. 1889.
2. Ibid. 13:251, Pl. 1890.
3. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 37. 1899.
4. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:268. 1903. Early Wilder. 5. Ill. Hort. Soc. Rpt. 45. 1896. Wilder. 6. Ont. Dept. Agr. Fr. Ont. 183, fig. 1914.

This is one of the good, early pears for the markets. It is more highly prized in the Mississippi Valley than in New York and the Eastern states where summer pears are raised in greater variety. The pears are very attractive in size, shape, and particularly in the bright lemon-yellow color, with a flaming cheek to the sun, the whole pear being characteristically marked with small, russet dots set in a pinkish circle. Of all summer pears the fruits of this one seem least inclined to rot at the center, and usually keep longer and ship better, although the skin is tender and bruises easily. The flesh is buttery, moderately juicy, sweet and rich, with a faint, pleasant perfume. The fruits are small but are usually larger than those of the well-known Seckel, and are edible almost to the very center. The tree is large, vigorous, prodigiously productive, as healthy as any, and a remarkably handsome ornamental. Despite this catalog of virtues, Wilder Early is not largely planted in New York.

Wilder Early is a chance seedling found by Charles A. Green, Rochester, New York, about 1884, in Chautauqua County, New York. At the time of its discovery the tree was already in bearing. The variety was named after Marshall P. Wilder, President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The name first appeared in the fruit-catalog of the American Pomological Society in 1899.

Tree large, vigorous, upright, dense-topped, rapid-growing, hardy, very productive; branches zigzag, reddish-brown overspread with gray scarf-skin, with numerous lenticels; branchlets thick, very long, light greenish-brown, lightly streaked with ash-gray scarfskin, dull, smooth, glabrous except near the tips of the new growth, sprinkled with many conspicuous, raised lenticels. Leaf-buds small, short, pointed, appressed; leaf-scars prominent. Leaves 3½ in. long, 1½ in. wide, leathery; apex taper-pointed; margin very finely serrate; petiole 2 in. long, glabrous. Flower-buds small, short, conical, plump, free, singly on short spurs; flowers late, 1⅝ in. across, white or tinged with pink, in dense clusters, average 7 buds in a cluster; pedicels ½ in. long, pubescent. Fruit ripe in late August; large, 2⅝ in. long, 2¼ in. wide, oblong-pyriform, symmetrical; stem ¾ in. long, very thick; cavity acute, narrow, russeted and with rays of russet extending over the sides, slightly compressed, rarely lipped; calyx large, open; lobes separated at the base, long, narrow, acuminate; basin very shallow, narrow, obtuse, wrinkled; skin thin, tender, smooth, dull; color pale lemon-yellow, with a pinkish blush on the exposed cheek often deepening to dark pink; dots characteristically distinct, very numerous, small, russet or russet-red; flesh white, stringy, tender and melting, buttery, moderately juicy, sweet, faintly aromatic; quality good. Core small, closed, with clasping core-lines; calyx-tube long, narrow, conical; seeds long, narrow, acute.

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