Supposed to have originated as a chance seedling in the nursery of Benjamin Macomber, Grand Isle, Vermont, about 1885. Tree medium to large, hardy in Zone 4, extremely productive.  Fruit lemon yellow, flesh yellow-tinged, melting, smooth, dense, fine-grained and juicy.   Ripens before Seckel, keeps 8-12 weeks.  Highly resistant to fire blight during blight epidemic here in 2016.

2023 - (#1 chokepear) - Put on two more grafts, first one good with 5" groth, 2nd one on bottom of a branch  didn't grow much but it took and is alive. Last years grafts doing fine. VB has thinner wood than the other varieties and is less vigorous but doing good considering it is on the north side of the tree amidst a lot of growth. Cut out more FB stricken wood on Chokepear and cleared out a lot of the summer growth, especially around grafts. Doing OK especially considering all it's gone through, and this year's heat and drought.

(#2 summercrisp) - Last year's graft had good growth, healthy.

2022 - End May grafted Vermont Beauty scions (thin tips) (from Bob Purvis). Three on fresh growth shoots north on Chokepear. Grew healthy, vigorous, ~24".

Extra 4th on low west branch of Summercrisp. Healthy, grew two 7". Just in case.

(gf) often bigger than regular seckel pears ... strong, pleasant, and somewhat spicy flavor, delicious, flavorful as a normal seckel pear. Very bright, very sweet, very fine grained, rich, melts in the mouth like butter if given a chance to fully ripen off the tree in cool enough weather. Fruit is small to medium in size, shape is that of the average European pear. Smooth skin is sharp lemon yellow with a slight greenish tone, has a bright deep rich red blush inclining to purple with pinkish-red dots that stand out a lot, very attractive. Firm but becoming somewhat buttery when fully ripe, can not be picked as unripe as a lot of other varieties can be. (other) may be similar to Forelle but is distinct variety.