After several years Prince Pietro's garden had, with the exception of the Crimson Neige rose which continued to bloom all through the year, abandoned his plans to add colour to his winter garden. On the contrary, now that his pear orchard hung in September with thousands of golden pears he was wondering how he could stop the birds pecking at them. He was tired of walking in the orchard and finding ripe fruit in the grass so he thought of a way to make the trees less attractive to the birds.
He set about developing a pear, round and juicy but without colour - a grey tone in fact. As to the twigs which held the pears he developed a wood as hard as steel which sounded like a small bell when a bird landed on one.
Within 5 years he had his orchard of grey pears and he walked proudly listening to the sound of tinkling bells. Very soon the birds had left the orchard and he had a rich crop of pears - each one unblemished by the beak of a bird and as round and juicy as any pear as you could find.
His servant took the first pickings to market but despite their reasonable price nobody stopped to buy his pears.
The orchard itself had fallen silent - no birds sang and because they had stopped visiting the clear bell sound of the branches stopped too. Because the birds didn't come the orchard was invaded by thousands of insects and wasps who, no longer eaten by the birds and indifference to the colour of the pears, swarmed round the Prince and the gardeners stinging them at every opportunity.
The orchard now resounded to the strangest combination of the buzz of bees and wasps and flies. Finally the Prince cut the whole orchard down and planted another variety of golden pear and soon the birds returned and the singing that he had once ignored now delighted the Prince all the more.
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| The Prince and the Grey Pear Tree by Foutoux All Rights Reserved Copyright L. Ivison 2013 |
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