The entire purpose of the harrow pear breeding program was all about trying to get a pear that was a disease resistant bartlett 25 Harrow pear varieties
Many people learned from the good work the harrow station did. To this day nearly every new pear released is about trying to replace the disease susceptible bartlett aka williams. You will frequently hear me speak of the big 3 pears We don't plant just the big 3 pears Bartlett , Bosc , and D'Anjou anymore. Marginal areas are now growing pears! We want to help you find replacements that work in your area! . Once they figure out how to replace bartlett they have a huge job ahead of them with D’anjou and bosc Question the History of a pear or know some history? Post it here! - #21 by clarkinks .One thing i’m sure of is that Van Mons was the best pear breeder we have ever seen. Jean-Baptiste Van Mons - Wikipedia
"Jean-Baptiste Van Mons (11 November 1765 Brussels — 6 September 1842 Leuven) was a Belgian physicist, chemist, botanist, horticulturist and pomologist, and professor of chemistry and agronomy at Louvain (1817-1830).[1] Van Mons carried out the first recorded selective breeding of the European Pear through cycles of seed propagation.[2]
Jean-Baptiste Van Mons
by Jean Baptiste Madou
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“I have found this art to consist in regenerating in a direct line of descent, and as rapidly as possible an improving variety, taking care that there be no interval between the generations. To sow, to re-sow, to sow again, to sow perpetually, in short to do nothing but sow, is the practice to be pursued, and which cannot be departed from; and in short this is the whole secret of the art I have employed.”
— Jean-Baptiste Van Mons’ Arbres Fruitiers
He was the most prolific pear breeder known, producing no fewer than 40 superior varieties over a 60-year period,[3] including Bosc and D’Anjou pears. Van Mons readily shared his observations and plants, and developed effective ways of exporting cuttings and seedlings as far away as the United States.[4] After his death his seed collection was acquired by Alexandre Bivort.
The French and Belgians were fanatical about pears, and spent an inordinate amount of time developing new varieties of pear with a buttery taste in the 18th century. A few Belgian varieties show this by having Beurré in the name. Louis XIV doted on pears, his greatest fruit love after figs and, not surprisingly, many varieties were cultivated at Versailles by his gardener Jean-Baptiste de la Quintinie.
He was a founding member of the second Société des douze."
They have tried for years to replace comice as well and yet in spite of great effort and fantastic new varities the comice remains popular but highly susceptible to disease
" The Comice pear originated in France, where it was first grown at the Comice Horticole in Angers in the 1840s.[1] A commemorative plaque in the Loire states: “In this garden was raised in 1849-50 the celebrated pear Doyenne du Comice by the gardener Dhomme and by Millet de la Turtaudiere, President of the Comice Horticole.”[2] It was brought to the United States in 1850 as a seedling.[3] By the 1870s, they had been introduced to Oregon by a French horticulturalist. Brothers Harry and David Rosenberg (the namesakes of the corporation Harry & David) began marketing their Comice pears under the name “Royal Riviera”. It remains one of their leading products.[4]"