North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>]

Does anyone have the faintest idea what this pear was called or numbered 
when it was either released, or not released?  Or even what year it came 
out?  I know of two trees, and they are very good.    But it is rather 
frustrating to not know more about them.  If Sherwood Akin was the source, 
he was buddies with a USDA breeder in SC, and I guess the variety could have 
slipped out that way.  Other things slipped out in similar ways, things that 
we taxpayers paid to have produced, but the plant breeders didn't see fit to 
release.  I've read that the Murcott, a fantastic citrus cross, would never 
have been released by the USDA these days, because they tree has got 
problems.   Because in the old days they had to work more with comercial 
growers, the stock was already in the hands of the public.     Donna