This variety appears to have been brought to Middletown, Kentucky, from Maryland by Captain William Chambers about 1800, with several other varieties. According to the rules of pomological nomenclature, this pear should be called Chambers as it was first known. The name Early Harvest was given the variety by Kentucky growers because of its extreme earliness, and became so closely associated with the variety that today it is the only one with which the public is familiar. In 1875 this variety was added to the fruit catalog-list of the American Pomological Society under the name Chambers.
Tree large, very vigorous, upright-spreading, dense-topped, very hardy, productive with age, long-lived; trunk very stocky, shaggy; branches thick, shaggy, zigzag, dull reddish-brown mingled with green and heavily covered with grayish scarf-skin, marked with numerous, large, elongated lenticels; branchlets very thick, straight, long, with long internodes, dull olive-green mingled with light brown, smooth, glabrous, with numerous very conspicuous, raised lenticels, variable in size.
Leaf-buds small, short, obtuse, appressed; leaf-scars prominent. Leaves 3⅛ in. long, 2⅜ in. wide; apex very abruptly pointed; margin glandless, varying from finely serrate to entire; petiole 1⅝ in. long, slender. Flowers open early, showy, 1⅛ in. across, well distributed, average 7 buds in a cluster; pedicels 1 in. long, thinly pubescent.
Fruit ripens in August; large, 3½ in. long, 3 in. wide, obovate-obtuse-pyriform, symmetrical; stem very thick, fleshy at its juncture with the cavity; cavity obtuse, shallow, narrow, often slightly wrinkled and drawn up in fleshy folds around the base of the stem; calyx small, open; lobes short, obtuse; basin shallow, narrow, obtuse, slightly wrinkled; skin thin, smooth; color pale yellow, more or less overspread on the exposed cheek with a pinkish blush, with stripes of carmine; dots numerous, small, greenish-russet, obscure; flesh yellowish, firm, granular, crisp, somewhat tough, variable in juiciness; quality poor. Core large, closed, axile, with clasping core-lines; calyx-tube very long, narrow; seeds wide, short, plump, obtuse.
EASTER BEURRÉ
1. Pom. Mag. 2:78, Pl. 1829. 2. Lindley Guide Orch. Gard. 397. 1831. 3. Kenrick Am. Orch. 160. 1841. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 425, fig. 196. 1845. 5. Gard. Chron. 168, fig. 1845. 6. Mag. Hort. 16:73. 1850. 7. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 157. 1854. 8. Ibid. 66. 1862. 9. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 751, fig. 1869. 10. Hogg Fruit Man. 572. 1884. 11. Ont. Dept. Agr. Fr. Ont. 159, figs. 1914.
Bergamote de la Pentecôte. 12. Ann. Pom. Belge 4:41, Pl. 1856.
Doyenné d’Hiver. 13. Mas Le Verger 1:43, fig. 28. 1866-73. 14. Leroy Dict. Pom. 2:72, fig. 1869. 15. Guide Prat. 61, 265. 1876.