THE APPLE. 7 



that have tender skins to be pared off, there are many 

 sorts ;" and many indeed we might expect, if so liberal a 

 definition of the name were accepted ; yet, in giving a list 

 of the fruits known in his day, he describes only about 

 20 different varieties of apples, adding, nevertheless, in 

 the pride of a little knowledge, " So as in this point 

 verily the world is grown already to the highest pitch, 

 insomuch as there is not a fruit but men have made trial 

 and many experiments with, for even in Virgil's days the 

 device of graffing strange fruits was very rife, consider- 

 ing that he speaks of the arbute-tree graffed on nut- 

 trees, the plane upon apple-trees, and the elm upon 

 cherry stocks, in such sort as I see not how men can. 

 devise to proceed further. And certainly for this long 

 time there hath not been a new kind of apple or of other 

 fruit heard of." In spite of the philosopher's inability 

 to conceive such a thing, Pomology has somewhat pro- 

 gressed since those Plinian days of " highest pitch," seeing 

 that more than 1,400 varieties of apples are now enu- 

 merated in the catalogue of the London Horticultural 

 Society. 



As the tree grows wild throughout almost the whole 

 of Britain, and as the name, Apple (in Celtic AbJial), is 

 considered by the best authorities to be derived from the 

 pure Celtic ball, signifying a round body, it is more pro- 

 bable that it is indigenous to this country than that it 

 was introduced, as some have thought, by the Romans. 

 From time immemorial it has been the badge of the 

 Highland clan Lament, and in the earliest times a branch 

 of apple was the mark of distinction conferred on the 

 Welsh bards who most excelled in minstrelsy. 



In Saxon times we find "William of Malmesbury dis- 

 tinguishing that it was under a wild apple-tree that King 

 Edgar once, in the year 973, lay down to sleep, which 

 would seem to imply the existence of a domesticated 

 kind also ; and after the Conquest, traces of its culture 

 soon appear ; for a bull of Pope Alexander, bearing the 

 date 1175, confirms to the monastery of Winchcombe, in 

 Gloucestershire, their claims on the town of Twining, 

 " with all its lands and orchards." In the course of time 



