North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>]

There are 3 pears I am having trouble figuring out.  I'll be grateful if 
someone here can figure them out.
   One should be easy.  It's a large plain green pear that turns yellow. 
The skin is thin, the flesh tender and grit free, the flavor very mild 
though distinctly pear like.   The texture is not juicy and melting like I 
am used to in European style pears.  What is distinctive about this pear is 
the weird lumpy shape.  It's as if it is made in sections of different 
sizes, the larger sections create angular projections when seen from the 
bottom.  The different sections kind of pucker together on the bottom end. 
The larger the individual fruit, the more extreme the lumpiness.  I have 
seen 2 trees, both quite upright and obviously a good 30+ years old.  I have 
seen 2 people at the farmer's mkt selling the fruit, so I know it is 
something that has been fairly widely available and of course quite blight 
resistant.  So I have looked carefully though the most familiar names on the 
Corvallis blight resistant list.  I figured it just had to be Maxine, esp 
after one old guy said he bought his tree from Starks.  Photos of Maxine 
don't look like it though.  Then I found just one painting of Beierschmitt 
that seemed to have the lumpy bottom.  Any other suggestions or 
verifications?


The other 2 shouldn't be a problem, but they are for me.  One is the tree in 
town that is again making a huge crop of smallish delicious melting fruit, 
and the other is my tree at home that makes pears that are squattier, 
thicker skinned, more russetted, redder, and at least a week later.  I 
thought last year that my pears weren't as good, but now I am not so sure. 
The skin is definitely thicker and grittier on mine.  A nurseryman ID'd the 
town tree as Ayers, which meant mine was something that comes in a bit 
later.  I had assumed Moonglow till I saw some photos of Moonglow.  Then I 
looked at Corvallis photos of Ayers, which looks more like my pear than the 
town tree does.  So maybe the problem is that I have Ayers and the town tree 
is something similar that comes in just a little earlier.  But I can't find 
anything that makes a small melting blight resistant pear shortly before 
Ayers.
   We are a little behind the seasons in town, probably because of the 
cooler temps from the lake (nice in summer, not so nice in winter).  My tree 
is young and the fruit get a lot more sun than the fruit under the large 
thick canopy of the town tree.  Even the town fruit has rougher skin on 
fruit that got a lot of sun.  But none of my fruit ever have any shine to 
their skin like the town fruit do.  I know of 2 other trees that make fruit 
just like mine, so I am assuming that they have to all 3 be Ayers.  If there 
is an odd one out, it would be the town tree.  From what I am told, it had 
to be something pretty easy to buy.  I suddenly started wondering if it 
could be Dabney, which the McMinnville nurseries would have acquired back 
when it came out in the 40's, and which could have been mislabeled  and 
gradually absorbed under the name Ayers along with the real Ayers.  But 
Dabney photos don't look right.  Please help me out here.  Can the same pear 
be a different shape and skin under different conditions?  Or can you 
suggest a variety it could be?
     Donna