There are several great ways I know of to track down obscure pear varieties 1. The book called The pears of New York 2. http://www.thebookofpears.fruitforum.net/directory/ 3. http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgsold/swish/accboth?si=0&query=Pears&x=16&y=5&btnG=Go!&filter=0&as_sitesearch=ars.usda.gov&ie=&output=xml_no_dtd&client=usda&lr=&proxystylesheet=ARS&oe= . What obscure way do you find those hard to find pears?
Pears of New York is the grandaddy. For European pears I used this French site a lot:
http://pomologie.com/poire/poire1/fpoires/varietes.html
I looked at it so much I can even sort of read fruit descriptions in French even though I don’t know the language.
Hartman wrote a nice guide on what is now the USDA collection in the 50’s, it has varieties too young for PearsofNY.
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/8578/tec_bul_41_.pdf?sequence=1
Morgan’s book is excellent but its expensive:
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Pears-Definitive-History-Varieties/dp/1603586660
Oh I just noticed you linked to that book’s website above, I found that once but forgot it existed. Thats a great resource! I’m going to add to the resources page here so I don’t forget it again.
Another book I used a lot was the Great Book of Pears.
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Pears-Barbara-Jeanne-Flores/dp/1580080367
Its in fact a small book, but it does have great descriptions of selected rare pears by Todd Kennedy, the CRFG fruit expert.
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Thanks Scott that’s excellent information! I forgot about the pomologie website but it seems like you posted that once.