222 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



i. 2). Philip of Macedon and his son, Alexander the 

 Great, were so fond of apples that these were placed 

 on their tables at every meal. 



Whether the Greeks used to indulge in eating too 

 many apples at their marriage feasts, or that a rare 

 and expensive kind graced the table, cannot now be 

 determined ; but it is certain from Strabo that the 

 Athenian lawgiver, Solon, made a decree pro- 

 hibiting the bridegroom at any rate eating more 

 than one, on such an occasion. Whenever the 

 Romans extended their arms, they availed themselves 

 of the choice fruits of the conquered countries, and 

 the great generals who brought them to Rome, took 

 pride in giving them their own names, as in memory 

 of some great event or service they had done for their 

 country. Thus the apple-tree met with a favourable 

 reception, and was cultivated with great care, for 

 Pliny states that there were many apple orchards near 

 Rome that let for the yearly sum of 2000 sesterces, 

 which is equal to ^12 iar. of our money, and some 

 of them, says this author, yielded more profit to the 

 owner than a small farm. The art of grafting, in 

 whatever way it may have originated, was known and 

 practised by gardeners at a very early period. Pliny 

 particularises the quince apple that came from a quince 

 grafted upon an apple stock, which, he says, smells 

 like a quince, and were called^ Appian, after Appius, 

 who was of the house of Claudian, and the first who 

 practised this kind of grafting. " Some apples," says 

 Pliny, "are so red that they resemble blood, which is 

 caused by their being grafted on a mulberry stock." 

 Indeed, he considered that the cultivation and graft- 

 ing of fruit had reached the highest perfection in his 

 days, for after having mentioned some extraordinary 

 production in the art of grafting, such as the above, 

 and also as having seen grapes, nuts, figs, &c, 

 flourishing all on one stock (which is well known to 

 be a physiological impossibility), he says, "I cannot 

 see how men can devise to proceed further, and for 

 some time no new kind of apple or any other fruit 

 has been heard of." 



The Romans possessed in Plinian days about 

 twenty-two varieties of this fruit, known as Manlian, 

 Claudian, Pompeian, Tiberian, and several others by 

 such noble names, who had introduced, or produced, 

 them by grafting. Pliny not only mentions apples of 

 different kinds, but also crabs and wildings, which are 

 small and sour, and for that reason have many a 

 foul word and shrewd curse given them. 



The apple appears to have been cultivated in some 

 parts of Britain at a very early period. Whitaker 

 conjectures it to have been introduced by the first 

 colonies of natives, and by the Haedui of Somerset- 

 shire in particular, hence Glastonbury was named by 

 the ancient Britons Ynys Avalla, which signifies 

 an apple orchard, and from this the Roman name 

 "Avalloun" of the place was derived. 



The Druids, we are told, paid particular reverence 

 to the apple-tree, because the mistletoe was supposed 



to grow only on that and the oak, and. also on account 

 of the great usefulness of the fruit. There is no 

 doubt that the Romans introduced new varieties from 

 their own country into Britain, and that they con- 

 tinued to exist during the Saxon period, for William 

 of Malmesbury, an English historian who flourished 

 in the twelfth century, mentions that King Edgar, in 

 973) lay down to sleep under an 011 Id apple-tree, which 

 would seem to imply the existence of cultivated kinds 

 also. 



The ancient Welsh bards were rewarded for excel- 

 ling in song by " the token of the apple spray," and 

 Gwaichmal thus sings : — "The point of the apple- 

 tree, supporting blossoms proud covering of the 

 woods, declares every one's desire tends to the 

 place of his affections." (Daines's " Welsh Bards.") 

 After the establishment of Christianity and the 

 Norman Conquest, the monks and heads of religious 

 houses planted orchards, and we find in the reign 

 of Henry II. a bull of Pope Alexander, date 11 75, 

 conferring the property of the monastery of Winch- 

 combe in Gloucestershire, and their claim on the town 

 of Twining, with all its orchards, meadows, &c, and 

 in a charter of King John granting property to the 

 priory of Lanthony in the same county, is mentioned 

 the church of Herdesley with twelve acres of land and 

 an orchard. In the beginning of the thirteenth 

 century Worcester had become famous for its fruit 

 trees and the cultivation of the apple had spread over 

 the land. Many varieties were no doubt introduced 

 from Normandy and other parts of the continent. 

 The oldest existing variety on record is the pearmain. 

 In the sixth year of King John, 1205, Robert de Ever- 

 mere was found to hold his lordship of Runham and 

 Stokesby in Norfolk by petty sergeanty, the paying 

 of 200 pearmains and 4 hogsheads (modios) of wine 

 made of pearmains into the exchequer at the feast 

 of St. Michael yearly.* 



Mrs. Barnard tells us that the costard, an apple' not 

 often met with now, appears to have been extensively 

 grown in the reign of Edward I., and it is mentioned 

 in the fruiterer's bills of that monarch as pome costard. 

 It is supposed that the itinerant venders who hawked 

 this fruit about ancient London were first called cos- 

 termongers, from this circumstance. We do not find 

 any account of the cultivation of apples during the 

 reigns of the monarchs of the houses of York and 

 Lancaster, the country being in an unsettled state and 

 so distracted by civil wars that both agriculture and 

 horticulture were quite neglected until the time of 

 the Tudors, when it is stated that, by the industry of 

 one Harris, a fruiterer to Henry VIII., the fields and 

 environs of about thirty towns of Kent were planted 

 with fruit trees brought from Flanders to the univer- 

 sal and general improvement of the country. Fuller 

 states that one Leonard Maschal, in the sixteenth year 

 of the same monarch, brought pippins from over the 

 sea and planted them at Plumstead in Sussex. Pip- 



* See Bloomfield's " History of Norfolk," vol. xi. 



