One of the historic sites here in Nacogdoches is the Durst-Taylor House and Gardens. The Durst-Taylor House is the second-oldest structure still standing on its original site in Nacogdoches. The grounds include a blacksmith shop, smokehouse, chicken yard, syrup mill and historic gardens. If you've driven by the house on North Street, you've probably noticed the gardens that are being developed on the property. To the south of the house is a small orchard consisting of two rows of fruit trees with a wagon lane between them. In the northern row, there are peach trees. The row on the other side of the wagon lane has pear trees. I'm sure the keen gardeners of Nacogdoches have noticed. Some of the especially observant have complained that the pear trees are not old-fashioned or authentic. Why would anyone plant Bradford pears (Pyrus caleryana), if they planned on a garden that harkened back to older days?
This is my answer, and this is where you, the reader, might help. This next spring we plan to graft old pear trees' wood stock onto the young Bradford pears. This would give the pear trees an extra head start, and we should be able to harvest pears even sooner. Your help would come from gathering cuttings or bud wood with which we could graft.
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The Durst-Taylor House is the second oldest structure still standing in its original site in Nacogdoches.
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Do you know of an old house site here in East Texas (preferably Nacogdoches County) that has an old pear tree? We would like to collect bud wood from it. So, if you know of such a place, please send Brian Bray, the Nacogdoches historic sites manager, a map to where the tree can be found. It doesn't have to be a fancy map; it can be hand-drawn, but we need to be able to go out and look at the tree in question. Send the map to: Brian W. Bray, historic sites manager; P.O. Box 635033, Nacogdoches, Texas 75963 5030.
While you're at it, please send, with the map, as much history about the pear tree you might know. For example, your grandfather planted it in 1890, etc. Who knows, you might even know the variety name of the pear. That, too, would be excellent information.
The plans for the gardens at the Durst-Taylor House are coming along nicely. I hope you've been noticing. One of the things we've tried to do there is to keep the grounds as authentic as possible. You must remember that we, here in Nacogdoches in the 1800s, were not gardening like the king of France. The Durst-Taylor House is no Versailles. We are trying to purposefully keep the garden less than 'pretty.' The tendency in historic landscapes is to overly beautify. Settlers back in the 1800s planted pretty things like roses, but a manicured St. Augustine lawn is something they didn't have. Remember, the lawn mower was not even invented until the 1830s in England and did not become common in the U.S., until the 1900s. So, the hope is to create a landscape that allows visitors to step back into time. Not only the house but the grounds around it should exemplify a bygone era.
One thing settlers in Nacogdoches did plant, though, was fruit trees. Peaches and pears particularly flourished and were highly valued. Any bud wood you could help us find will be one step closer to the authenticity to which the folks at the Durst-Taylor House and Gardens aspire.
