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wealthiest yeomen——do taste any other drink in the family except at some special 
festivals twice or thrice a year, and that for variety rather than choice.” Well 
may we of the 19th centary exclaim ‘‘Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur 
in illis.” Many a time—continues the writer—servants when they betake them- 
selves to marriage seek out an acre or two of ground which they find fit for 
orchards ; for this they give fine or double value for years or lives, and thereon 
they build a cottage and plant an orchard, which is all the wealth they have for 
themselves and their posterities. I regret to say there is, as in Evelyn’s account, 
a black side to this deliciously primitive sketch of an Herefordshire Arcadia in the 
beginning of the 17th century ; for the writer, as he continues, falls into a strain 
of moralising well fitted to the present age. ‘For gardens, we have little 
encouragement to design more than is necessary for our families, except our River 
Wye may be made navigable for transportation, and by defect of transportation 
our store of cyder is become a snare to many who turn God’s blessing into wanton- 
ness and drunkenness. I wish (the writer concludes) this sore proverb, Bona terra 
mala gens may not belong to us. The Most High has filled us with many blessings ; 
but we fail so much in returning due thanks that we many times turn His blessings 
into heavy curses, and make His liberal gifts the prevailing curse of our hasty 
ruin—whereas the Rural Life shouid, in all reason, be the most humble, tame, and 
innocent.” 
I will now, in my retrospective survey, take a glance at the historic apples 
and pears, which were formerly cultivated in Herefordshire, although most of 
them are best known nowadays by their varieties. It seems to me I can most 
practically thus treat my subject, because I thoroughly endorse Andrew Knight’s 
remark, though contrary I am aware to the opinion of the best old Pomological 
writers, that “‘ Herefordshire is not so much indebted to its soil, as to some valuable 
varieties.” And in commenting on these varieties seriatim, I shall be able to show 
you further, that there is also great truth in another remark of Andrew Knight’s 
“that from the description that Parkinson (who wrote in 1629) has given of the 
apples cultivated in his time, it is evident that many of those known by the same 
name are quite different, and probably new varieties ; some being so altered for 
better or worse, as to assume quite a new seasonal or structural character. 
Among cider apples, to which these remarks specially apply, the Redstreak or 
Scudamore Crab then reigned supreme ; the early-fruiting Gennet Moyle, its 
hardly formidable rival except with the ladies, both varieties long years ago over- 
taken and swept away by the tide of time ; the Musk and Golden Pippin, pigmy 
anatomies of their former selves, while the Foxwhelp and Styre ina moribund 
state are only existing on their past reputation, which their numerous progeny 
unfortunately does not in any degree give promise of sustaining. 
I will take first some of our historic Perry pears, on account of their 
extreme longevity, and from being so well known tous all. The Teignton Squash 
is first in point of excellence, if not of antiquity, having existed without doubt at 
the beginning of the 16th century. Its origin is obscure. Although in the last 
stage of debility and decay the old trees bear well, though disappearing fast. 
