SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 181 



on to say that old men in Surrey remembered " the first 

 gardeners " to plant cabbages, coleflowers, and to sow turnips 

 and carrots : " they paid 8 pound per acre yet the gentleman 

 was not content fearing they would spoile his ground because 

 they did use and dig it. . . . Many parts of England 

 are wholly ignorant . . . where the name of gardening 

 and howing is scarcely known. . . . Gardening - ware 

 (unless about London) is not plentiful or cheap. . . We 

 have not nurseries sufficient in this land of Apples, Pears, 

 Cherries, Vines, Chestnuts, Almonds, &c. : but gentlemen are 

 necessitated to send to London some hundred miles for them." 

 Further on, however, he says that " there are many gallant 

 orchards" in Kent, about London, in Gloucestershire, Hereford, 

 and Worcester, and these we know had existed a long time 

 previous to the fifty years he ascribes to them. In Kent and 

 Surrey, he adds, plums usually " pay no small part of the rent." 



It was not the Puritan party only who were occupied 

 in the improvements of orchards. One of the great Royalist 

 families took a prominent part in the work. To this day, at 

 Holme Lacy, in Herefordshire, is to be seen the same long 

 green walk flanked with yew hedges, down which Charles I. 

 may have passed, when he stayed with Lord Scudamore, the 

 year which is marked in history by his loss of the battle of 

 Naseby. After the death of the king he had served so 

 faithfully, Scudamore went with the expedition to the relief 

 of the French Huguenots at Rochelle, and on his return to 

 Holme Lacy, occupied himself with planting and grafting 

 apple-trees. He introduced the Red Streak Pippin, from 

 which the choicest sort of cider was made. Ambrose Philips 

 (1671-1749) commemorates this fact in his poem " Pomona." 

 He praises the Musk apple, and adds : 



" Yet let her to the Red-streak yield, that once 

 Was of the sylvan kind, uncivilized, 

 Of no regard, 'till Scudamore's skilful hand, 

 Improv'd her, and by courtly discipline 

 Taught her the savage nature to forget 

 Hence called the Scudamorean plant, whose wfne 

 Whoever tastes, let him with grateful heart 

 Respect that ancient loyal house." 



