100 year old pear tree? Is this possible? Very cool.

Hi Tess, those varieties sound good....esp. Liberty, Spartan, William's Pride....you definitely want scab resistant apples. As for your arborist, he is half-right in that it is undesireable to protect the whole pear tree (probably) but individual pears can be protected next year.....we talk about bagging fruit on this forum and you should learn more about that......as for age of pears, the Fowler Pear tree by the Mukilteo landing north of Seattle has a Seckel pear tree planted in 1862 and still producing and if you come to our Harvest Fest in Carkeek Park you can see 120 year old apple and pear trees www.pipersorchard.org......final note: since I "advertise" this gardenweb.com website for growers that ask questions , perhaps I can advertise the www.homeorchardsociety.org website for people with questions in the Pacific Northwest.