PRÉSIDENT DROUARD
1. Gard. Chron. N. S. 25:431. 1886. 2. Guide Prat. 51. 1895. 3. Cat. Cong. Pom. France 331, fig. 1906.
Präsident Drouard. 4. Lucas Tafelbirnen 211, fig. 1894.
Drouard. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 35. 1899. 6. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:241. 1903. 7. Mich. Sta. Sp. Bul. 27:22. 1903.
Président Drouard has been on probation in the United States for nearly thirty years, but does not seem to be in great demand in any part of the country. In the pear-growing region of New York to which it first came, it is scarcely known. The accompanying description shows that the fruits contain all of the requisites of a good pear. The flesh is juicy, melting, saccharine, rich, and perfumed. The trees, however, are not satisfactory. They lack vigor, blight badly, and are niggardly in bearing. With these faults, there is no place for the variety in commercial plantations, but it may well be planted in home orchards and in collections.
Président Drouard is a chance seedling found in the suburbs of Pont-de-Ce, Maine-et-Loire, France, by M. Olivier, gardener at the Fruit-Garden at Angers. It was sent out by M. Louis Leroy of Angers and was described in 1886 as a new pear. It seems to have been introduced in this country by Charles A. Green, Rochester, New York. The American Pomological Society added the variety to its list of fruits under the name Drouard in 1899.
Tree of medium size, spreading, open-topped, usually hardy; branches reddish-brown, nearly covered with gray scarf-skin, marked with small lenticels; branchlets thick, long, greenish-brown mingled with red, dull, smooth, pubescent on the new growth, with numerous small, brownish, raised, conspicuous lenticels.
Leaf-buds small, short, pointed, plump, free; leaf-scars with very prominent shoulders; Leaves 3 in. long, 1¾ in. wide, oval, thick, leathery; apex taper-pointed; margin glandless or with but few glands, entire or closely serrate; petiole glabrous, greenish, thick, 1⅝ in. long, tinged red; stipules very short, tinged with pink. Flower-buds short, conical, very plump, free, arranged singly on short spurs; flowers 1⅜ in. across, in dense clusters, 6 to 9 buds in a cluster; pedicels 1⅛ in. long, lightly pubscent, greenish.