you can look into Stark sugarsweet pear from Starbros. Tony F.

Thanks but the Stark pears ripen in September. In fact I think I bought my tree from Stark Bros. Sugar pears ripen much earlier and have a unique flavor that is very different than other pears.

I think I found what I've been looking for. William Coxe in his book "A View of the Cultivation of Fruit Trees" published in 1817 (copies are available several places online) describes a pear variety that matches the variety I've been looking for. It's called the Madeleine, Citron de Carmes, Green Chissel, or Early Chaumontel (different names for same variety). An old variety probably impossible to find anymore.

Citron des Carmes is available, I had it in my orchard a few years ago but fireblight got it. You would need to graft it since I believe only scionwood is available.

I'm not sure thats your pear but many varieties were called sugar in the US.

Scott

Sometimes this place has it listed for sale:

Here is a link that might be useful: pear

I've got a piece of this grafted too, it's supposed to be a great early pear with citrusy aroma maybe possible if that helps your ID?

I always think of Seckels when I hear sugar pear. USDA Corvallis will have a lot of the varieties you may wanna give a try. Pears have awesome graft take rates too.

Thanks very much folks! Sierra Madre Farms has it.

Not sure who gives official "sugar pear" status but seckels are seckels. Not the real thing.

Just curious but why do a lot of the old pear varieties have French names? Are pears a French thing?

French & Belgian- probably a climate thing as much as anything, I would guess.

Flemish Beauty is great pear, and once made up a good deal of the American pear production, but it fell to fireblight fairly early in the 20th century.

In the 1800s the pear was the most popular fruit in Belgium and France, and breeding pears was what all the foremost breeders were working on. They produced countless excellent varieties and nobody has come close since.

Scott

Scott,

It seems to me that quite a few pear cultivars were developed by monks in France, correct?

There were early pears developed by monks but nearly all the varieties still around today were bred in the ~1800s by more scientifically-minded people who figured out a huge number of crosses was needed to get good new varieties. van Mons is probably the most famous, he bred Bosc and d'Anjou for example. See the Wikipedia article on him. There were dozens of big-time pear breeders in Belgium and France in this period.

Scott