Tree medium in size, vigorous, dense-topped, upright-spreading, productive; trunk and branches marked with numerous lenticels; branchlets slender, short, curved, with short internodes, light reddish-brown, tinged with green, sprinkled with scattering, inconspicuous, very small, raised lenticels. Leaf-buds small, short, sharply pointed, free; leaf-scars with prominent shoulders. Leaves 2¾ in. long, 1¼ in. wide; apex taper-pointed; margin glandular, finely serrate; petiole 2 in. long, slender. Flower-buds small, short, sharply pointed, free, singly on short spurs; flowers with an unpleasant odor, showy, 19⁄16 in. across; pedicels 1 in. long, thinly pubescent.
Fruit ripens January to March; medium in size, 2½ in. long, 2¾ in. wide, roundish-obtuse-pyriform, truncate at both ends, irregular in outline; stem variable in length, averaging ¾ in. long, thick, enlarged at the top, curved; cavity broad, slightly furrowed; calyx large, slightly open; basin variable in depth, furrowed; skin tender; color greenish-yellow, partly overspread with cinnamon-russet and sometimes with a dull blush on the exposed cheek; flesh whitish, variable in texture, juicy, varying from sweet to a brisk, vinous flavor; quality poor unless grown under the most favorable conditions.
ONONDAGA
1. Horticulturist 1:322, fig. 77. 1846-47. 2. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 231. 1858. 3. Mas Le Verger 3: Pt. 1, 179, fig. 88. 1866-73. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 823. fig. 1869. 5. Leroy Dict. Pom. 2:480, fig. 1869. 6. Guide Prat. 74, 292. 1876. 7. Hogg Fruit Man. 625. 1884.
Swan’s Orange. 8. Mag. Hort. 13:243, fig. 19. 1847. 9. Hovey Fr. Am. 1:21, Pl. 1851.
Some seventy or eighty years ago this pear was widely introduced under the names Onondaga and Swan’s Orange, and for a generation and more was much grown in eastern pear regions. It has now practically passed from cultivation in commercial orchards, but is still to be found in collections and home plantings. The fruits are large, handsome, and of very good quality, resembling those of Bartlett in flavor and with even better flesh-characters. The trees are vigorous, hardy, fruitful—almost ideal in every character but one. The tree is so susceptible to blight that the variety can never have commercial value in American orchards. Whether or not it is worth planting in home orchards depends upon the planter’s willingness to suffer loss from blight.
It seems impossible to trace this variety to its ultimate source. We know, however, that Henry Case, Liverpool, New York, cut a graft during the winter of 1806 from a tree growing on land of a Mr. Curtiss at Farmington, Connecticut. In the spring of the same year, Mr. Case grafted this cion into a tree about three miles west of Onondaga Hill, New York, and in 1808 moved the tree to Liverpool where it grew and bore fruit. Many grafts were taken from this tree before it died in 1823. Up to this time, the variety appears to have received no name nor had it been generally disseminated. We hear nothing further of it until about 1840 when it was brought to notice by a Mr. Swan of Onondaga Hollow, who exhibited specimens of the variety in Rochester. Ellwanger and Barry were so impressed with the fruit that they secured cions and propagated it under the name Swan’s Orange which they changed later to Onondaga. Onondaga was given a place in the American Pomological Society’s fruit-catalog in 1858.
Tree medium in size, vigorous, spreading, open-topped, very productive; branches zigzag, reddish-brown, overspread with thin gray scarf-skin, marked with many large lenticels; branchlets slender, short, light brown, tinged with green and lightly streaked with ash-gray scarf-skin, dull, smooth, the new growth slightly pubescent, with small, raised, pinkish lenticels.