40 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



explicit, and enumerates fifty-seven. Evelyn, in the 

 preface to his "Pomona/"' written some thirty years or 

 so after Parkinson's book, says, " It was through the plain 

 industry of one Harris, a fruiterer to Henry VIII., that 

 the fields and environs of about thirty towns in Kent 

 only were planted with fruit from Flanders to the universal 

 benefit and general improvement of the county." Hartlib, 

 writing in 1650, speaks of " one who had two hundred sorts 

 of apples." In more recent catalogues about three hundred 

 kinds are ordinarily specified, but such lists are always 

 fluctuating, as old kinds grow out of favour, and are 

 superseded by others, which, if better, retain their ground, 

 or if they do not justify their early promise are erased 

 from the list. The crab-apple furnishes, from its vigour 

 and hardiness, a very useful stock on which to graft. 



The wild pear, Pyrus communis, and the service tree, 

 P. torminalis, are other indigenous species of the genus. 

 The blossoms are in each case pure white, and may be 

 found at the same time as those of the apple. The pear 

 tree is about equally common with the crab, while the 

 service tree is somewhat more local in its range. 



