When I was sold this tree the grower was steering me away from Bartlett (“it’ll get fireblight sooner or later”) and toward this one he said it was “a small package, but dynamite” and it has yet to disappoint me. It is smaller than the Seckels they sell around here, and I suspect smaller than White Doyenne and Dana’s Hovey, which I get a bit of now and then but not enough to hold forth about.
The only thing that would put some people off is it’s grittiness, which fades as it ripens. It’s very tasty before it’s fully ripe though. I find them to be loaded with classic pear flavor but distinctly sharp. They’re juicy and aromatic. “Gold Spice” is an appropriate name as they have a pronounced spicy quality … haven’t tried cooking them. But I suspect they would poach well.
The tree seems to be of a generous nature and pest pressures, aside from squirrels, are low. I have a few very small worms of some kind in a few of them, so next year I’ll spray spinosad and/or once and done when I spray my apple for codling moth.
Mine is on a OHxF rootstock, but I’m not sure which. I’ve found it easy to keep it to about 12 feet, doing some dormant pruning when I feel I’ve let something get too long or too branched, but mostly summer pruning is to clear out the interior of the tree and to encourage appropriately-placed and sized fingers on which I hope fruiting spurs form. (Sometimes this seems to work, and sometimes the scaffolds seem to need to branch before they start spurring. I also bend branches below the horizontal to encourage spurs. I wish I knew what I was doing!)
Anyhow, this is a variety worth testing. Oh, it’s a pretty little fruit, too. Typically runs to a soft yellow with a distinct blush on the sunny side.