COMMON APPLE-TKEE. !^U1 



Dii Hamel under the name of " Pomme d'or," "Reinette d'Angleterre," and 

 "Grosse Reinette d'Angleterre." Pippins were probably very little known in 

 England until towards the close of the XVlth century. Fuller states that one 

 Leonard Maschal, in the sixteenth year of the reign of Henry VJII., brought them 

 from over sea, and planted them at Plumstead, in Sussex. They were called 

 pippins because the trees were raised from the pips or seeds, and bore the apples 

 which gave them celebrity, without grafting. 



The fine cider orchards of Herefordshire began to be planted in the reign of 

 Charles I. The adaptation of the trees to the soil was soon discovered, and they 

 spread over the face of the whole country. The cider counties of England lie 

 something in the form of a horse-shoe, round the Bristol channel, the best of 

 which are in Worcester and Hereford, on the north of the channel, and 

 Somerset and Devon on the south. Of the varieties of the cider apples, the 

 " Redstreak," and the " Sline," were formerly the most prized; and the cider 

 of these apples, and the perry of the "Squash Pear," were celebrated throughout 

 the kingdom. Some of the orchards occupy a space of forty or fifty acres, the 

 produce of which is very fluctuating, and the growers seldom expect an abun- 

 dant crop oftener than once in three years ; and in a good year, an acre of orchard 

 will produce about six hundred bushels of fruit.* 



The introduction of the common apple-tree into the North American colonies, 

 dates back to the earliest periods of their settlements. In the middle, northern, and 

 some of the western states, no branch of rural economy has been pursued with 

 more zeal, and few have been attended with more successful and beneficial re- 

 sults, than the cultivation of orchards. It was not undertaken on an extensive 

 scale, however, until about the commencement of the present century, when experi- 

 ence had taught the hardy yeomanry of the soil, that " the moderate use of cider, 

 as a common beverage, was highly conducive to sound health and long life." It 

 appears from Dodsley's London " Annual Register," that in the year 1768, the 

 Society for promoting Arts, &c., at New York, awarded a premium of ten pounds to 

 Thomas Young, of -Oyster Bay, for the largest nursery of apple-trees, the number 

 being twenty-seven thousand one hundred and twenty-three. Between the years 

 1794 and 180S, Mr. William Coxe, of Burlington, New Jersey, enriched his lands in 

 that vicinity with extensive orchards, containing in the aggregate several thousand 

 trees, which occupied a space of seventy or eighty acres ; and within and since 

 that period, numerous other orchards have been planted in various parts of the 

 country, equaling, and even surpassing them in extent. Among the largest, and 

 perhaps the most select, are those of Mr. .Robert L. Pell, of the county of Ulster, 

 New York, which have been planted about twenty years, and are said to contain 

 twenty thousand trees. America, too, has given birth to several valuable varieties 

 of apples, which enter extensively both into her foreign as well as her domestic 

 commerce, and are eagerly sought after in almost every civilized country of the 

 globe. The most celebrated, and unquestionably the best variety extant, for ship- 

 ping and for winter use, is said to have been the spontaneous production from a 

 seed, more than a century and a half ago, in Newtown, on Long Island, near New 

 York, and is well known by the name of " Newtown Pippin." The original tree 

 stood on the estate owned at present by Mr. John J. Moore, of that town, and for 

 a long time its fruit was called " Gershom Moore l^ippin," in honor of its former 

 proprietor. After enduring for more than one hundred years, it died, in about 

 the year 180.5, from excessive cutting and exhaustion. Its scions were in great 

 request by all the principal amateurs and orchardists of the day, and engrafted 

 trees of it are still to be met with in the neighbouring towns, which have stood 



* See Library of Entertaining Knowledge, article, "Apple." 



