Curate (Curé)
Curate (Pastorenbirne, Vicar of Winkfield) is known in Georgia under the name of winter Williams. It is found often enough and at a rather high rate in old orchards of many districts in Karthalinia, while in all the new orchards it is absent not being admitted in the commercial assortment in view of the unsatisfactory flavor of its fruit, the local nickname for Curate’s pears being „potatoes“.
The fruit is large, pyriform, sometimes unsymmetrical, with a slightly knobbed surface and a white stripe – a pomological characteristic of the sort – passing over one of the sides.
Skin smooth, lustrous, at harvest maturity pale green, when fully ripe greenish yellow, sometimes slightly blushed on the sunny side.
Flesh greenish white, at full maturity half melting, sweetish acid, slightly aromatic, when overmature mealy, flavourless.
Fruit ripen for use in November-December. Late picking is preferable, as the fruit get more juicy. The tree grows luxuriantly, characterized when young by the tortuosity of shoots.
Blooming early, flowers self-sterile, fruits sometimes parthenocarpic; tree longest-living and resistant to fungus diseases even under unfavorable environmental conditions; bearing late, fruiting abundant and regular; Curate succeeds well on the quince and is often used for intermediate grafting. Because of the poor quality of its fruits, Curate is not acceptable for commercial growing on the same scale with other pears.
