670 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1810. 



our little wild black, also a dwarf 

 one not exceeding three feet 

 high. 

 Chestnuts. They had six sorts, 

 some more easily separated from 

 the skin than others, and one 

 with a red skin: they roasted 

 them as we do. 

 Figs. They had many sorts, black 

 and white, large and small, one 

 as large as a pear, another no 

 larger than an olive. 

 Medlars. They had two kinds, 

 the one larger, and the other 

 smaller. 

 Mulberries. They had two kinds 

 of the black sort, a large and 

 a smaller. Pliny speaks also of 

 a mulberry growing on a brier : 

 Nascuntur et in Rubis. 1. xv. 

 sect 27 ; but whether this 

 means the raspberry or the com- 

 mon blackberry does not ap- 

 pear. 

 Nuts. They had hazel nuts and 

 filberds (has quoque mollis pro- 

 tegitbarba) 1. 15, sect. 24: they 

 roasted these nuts. 

 Pears. Of these they had many 

 sorts, both summer and winter 

 fruit, melting and hard, they 

 had more than 36 kinds, some 

 were called Libralia: we have 

 our pound pear. 

 Plums. They had a multiplicity 

 of sorts (ingens turba pruno- 

 rum), black, white, and varie- 

 gated ; one sort was called Asi- 

 nina, from its cheapness ; an- 

 other Damascena, this had much 

 stone and little flesh : from 

 Martial's epigram, xiii. 29, we 

 may conclude that it was what 

 we now call prunes. 

 Quinces. They had three sorts, 

 one was called Chrysomela from 

 its yellow flesh ; they boiled 



them with honey, as we make 

 marmalade. See Martial, xiii. 

 24.. 



Services they had, the apple- 

 shaped, the pearshaped, and a 

 small kind, probably the same 

 as we gather wild, possibly the 

 azarole. 



Strawberries they had, but do not 

 appear to have prized: the cli- 

 mate is too warm to produce 

 this fruit in perfection, unless in 

 the hills. 



Vines. They had a multiplicity 

 of these, both thick-skinned 

 (Duracina) and thin-skinned: 

 one vine growing at Rome pro- 

 duced 12 amphorae of juice, 

 84: gallons. They had round- 

 berried and long-berried sorts ; 

 one so long that it was called 

 Dactilides, the grapes being 

 like the fingers on the hand. 

 Martial speaksfavourably of the 

 hard-skinned grape for eating, 

 xiii. 22. 



Walnuts. They had soft-shelled 

 and hard-shelled as we have. 

 In the golden age, when men 

 lived upon acorns, the gods 

 lived upon walnuts, hence the 

 name Juglans, Jovis glans. 



As a matter of curiosity, it has 

 also been deemed expedienttoadd 

 a list of the fruits cultivated in our 

 English gardens in the year 1573 : 

 it is taken from a book entitled 

 Five Hundred points of good Hus- 

 bandry, &c. by Thomas Tusser. 



Thomas Tusser, who had re- 

 ceived a liberal education at Eton- 

 School, and at Trinity hall Cam- 

 bridge, lived many years as a far- 

 mer in Suffolk and Norfolk : he 

 afterwards removed to London, 

 where he published the first edi- 



i 



