HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



223 



pins were so called because the trees were raised 

 from pips or seeds, and bore apples which gave them 

 celebrity without grafting. 



So important had the cultivation of this fruit 

 become in the reign of Henry VIII., that barking 

 of apple-trees was declared to be felony. The Non- 

 pareil, according to the old herbalists, was brought 

 from France by a Jesuit in the reign of Queen Mary, 

 and first planted in the gardens of Oxfordshire. 



Tusser, in his list of fruits published in 1573, 

 states apples of all sorts are grown in this country. 

 The best apples in Gerard's time were the queenings 

 and pearmains, both summer and winter, with some 

 other kinds, amounting in all to seven ; but he says 

 there are a great many others, adding that Kent " doth 

 abound with apples of most sorts." He afterwards 

 mentions that he has "seen in the pastures and 

 hedgerows, about the grounds of a worshipful gentle- 

 man dwelling two miles from Hereford, called Mr. 

 Roger Bodnome, so many trees of all sorts, that the 

 servants drank for the most part no other drink but 

 that which is made of apples." The quantity is such, 

 that by the report of the gentleman himself, the 

 parson hath for tithe many hogsheads of cider. 



Gerard was a warm advocate for the cultivation 

 of this fruit, for in his account of the apple he says, 

 "Gentlemen that have land and living put forward, 

 in the name of God, graffe, set, plant, and nourish 

 up trees in every corner of your grounds ; the labour 

 is small, the cost is nothing, the commoditie is great, 

 yourselves shall have plentie, the poor shall have 

 somewhat in time of want to relieve their necessities, 

 and God shall reward your good minds and diligence." 

 The golden pippin, although not mentioned by 

 Gerard, is perhaps one of the oldest of our native 

 apples. It is said to have been first reared at Parham 

 Park, which is situated on the north side of the 

 South Downs, Sussex. The Dutch, in one of then- 

 oldest catalogues of fruits, acknowledged it to be an 

 English apple, for they call it the " Engelsche goud 

 pepping." Pippins were, in the time of Shakespeare, 

 delicacies for dessert. Sir Hugh Evans in the " Merry 

 Wives of Windsor" says, "I will make an end of 

 my dinner ; there's pippins and cheese to come ; " 

 and, again, Justice Shallow, in his invitation to 

 Falstaff, says : " You shall see mine orchard, where 

 in an arbour we will eat last year's pippins of my own 

 grafhng." In the valuations of the fruit trees in the 

 gardens at Wimbleton, belonging to the queen of 

 Charles I., there is only one pippin-tree mentioned, 

 so it does not appear to have been very generally cul- 

 tivated at that period. Phillips states that Catherine, 

 Empress of Russia, was so fond of this apple that 

 she was regularly supplied with it from England ; 

 and, in order that she might have it in the greatest 

 perfection, each apple was separately enveloped in 

 silver paper before it was packed. The beginning 

 of the seventeenth century may be looked upon as 

 the golden age of apples, and " orcharding," as it was 



then called, became general throughout the country. 

 Lord Scudamore, ambassador to the court of France 

 in the reign of Charles I., collected in Normandy 

 scions of cider apple-trees, and on his return to 

 England encouraged the grafting of them throughout 

 Herefordshire, by which means the county was said 

 to become one entire orchard. 



The Scudamore crab, afterwards known as the 

 redstreak, was introduced at this time, and created, 

 we are told, quite a sensation amongst the pomologists 

 of the period. It was a great favourite of Evelyn's, 

 who mentions it in his " Pomona," published in 1664, 

 as an appendix to his " Sylva." Cider was the drink 

 in Normandy at a very early period, from which 

 country it was introduced into England. During 

 the reign of William III. and Anne, when there was 

 a constant succession of wars with France, the use 

 of cider was generally inculcated as tending to the 

 permanent exclusion of the wines of our great rival, 

 so that this drink became one of the chief beverages 

 of the nation. The cider countries principally lie in 

 the form of a horse-shoe around the Bristol Channel. 

 ( To be continued.) 



THE BEAR IN SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 



By John Wager. 



Part II. 



\Continucdfro7iij>. 131.] 



THE surliness of the bear is proverbial ; yet gruff 

 as he is accounted, it is also an article of 

 faith in the north that he will never do harm to a 

 child. A remarkable instance of this good-natured 

 forbearance was related to the present writer by a 

 pastor of East Dalecarlia, in which locality it oc- 

 curred, at a seater to which a she-bear had rambled 

 with her two young cubs, and where the latter where 

 joined in play by two children, to the satisfaction, 

 apparently, of their indulgent dam. Not so, how- 

 ever, to the herd-girl, an older sister of the children, 

 who, on discovering their associates, was seized with 

 alarm, though needlessly ; for as soon as she made 

 her appearance, and the youngest child, with an ac- 

 companying movement of the hand, bid them "go 

 away now," Mother Bruin and her little ones trotted 

 peaceably and slowly off. 



Dr. Berlin, a Swedish author, in his "Laseboki 

 Naturlaran," tells of a bear that [intruded amongst 



o 



some cows that were grazing in a forest of Angerman- 

 land, but was driven away by the little herd-girl ; 

 who, mistrusting its intention, and too inexperienced 

 to apprehend the danger incurred, beat it with a 

 stick. Similar cases, it is said, have often occurred 

 in Norway ; and the author adds, that such tractable 

 bears have probably never tasted flesh. When at 

 Transtrand, West Dalecarlia, in June 1866, we were 

 informed by the pastor there, that two weeks pre- 

 viously, as a brave little girl was herding goats in the 

 neighbourhood, a bear, despite her vigorous outcry 



