Improvement of Edible Fruits, 271 



and the thirst-quenching virtues of its juice, have made it uni- 

 versally a favourite. The French gardeners have been long 

 celebrated for their success and indefatigable perseverance in 

 the cultivation of the pear ; almost all our superior sorts are 

 from that country. The monastic institutions all over Europe, 

 but particularly in France, were the sources from whence 

 flowed many excellent horticultural rules, as well as objects. 

 The great variety of this fruit all over Britain, and the still 

 greater diversity of provincial names, have rendered our lists 

 most inexplicable ; but it is hoped that such confusion and 

 misnomers will not be allowed much longer to exist. 



Of the Apple. — It is difficult to find adequate terms to set 

 forth the value of the advantages which have accrued to man- 

 kind from the cultivation of this deservedly high-prized fruit. 

 In our woods and hedges, the crab and wilding are everywhere 

 found ; crooked, hostile, rigid in figure and quality ; — with 

 numerous, small, austere fruit, which even the hog will hardly 

 eat; but, transplanted into the garden, and subjected to the 

 corrections of the husbandman, they have, in the course of 

 time, been divested of their savage character, — forming a 

 goodly tree, and yielding crops of goodly fruit, fit for many pur- 

 poses of life. Many of the newest sorts have been spontane- 

 ously produced, and a great number by the art of fertilising 

 the flowers of one with the pollen of another. One circum- 

 stance in the history of the apple must not pass unnoticed 

 here; viz., the deterioration of the old sorts, which regaled and 

 were the boast of our forefathers a century ago. It is the 

 opinion of an eminent orchardist that as the apple is an arti- 

 ficial production, and, as such, has its stages of youth, maturity, 

 and old age, it cannot, in its period of decrepitude, be by any 

 means renovated to its pristine state, either by pruning or cut- 

 ting down, changing its place, or by transferring its parts to 

 young and vigorous stocks ; and that, in whatever station it 

 may be placed, it carries with it the decay and diseases of its 

 parent. This is the most rational account which has been given 

 of this indisputable fact ; and though its accuracy has been 

 called in question by some naturalists, the general failure in 

 our old orchards, and the difficulties in forming new ones with 

 the old favourite sorts, is a decisive proof that such deteriora- 



