Apples near Kilkenny. 165 



Art. XVII. A Descriptive List of such Apples as have been found 

 to succeed in the Neighbourhood of Kilkenny* in Ireland. By 

 Mr. John Robertson, F.H.S., Nurseryman there. 



Sir, 

 Your call on your friends in the different quarters of 

 the United Kingdom, to supply you with lists of the fruits 

 most in esteem there, was well conceived, and, if attended to, 

 would render a valuable service to that branch of horticulture, 

 by pointing out to others placed under similar circumstances 

 the sorts most likely to succeed in their own situationsf ; and 



* Fynes Moryson, secretary to Lord Deputy Mountjoy, in his Itinerary 

 written 1598, says of Kilkenny: — 



" It is a pleasant town, the chief of the towns inland ; memorable for 

 the civility of the inhabitants, the husbandman's labour, and the pleasant 

 orchards." Some of these orchards were planted by the monks previously to 

 the year 1500, in the abbey gardens. These have all perished, or have been 

 destroyed ; the last tree was blown down in a storm a few years hence, and had 

 only the bark of the stem remaining to support its head, and yet bore abund- 

 antly ; it was the smaller Summer Bon Chretien. Others which were planted 

 on the banks of the Nore, and are nearly of the same standing, still remain 

 in all the vigour of a healthy old age. One of them, about three quarters 

 of an acre, is leased at 50 guineas a year rent; a tree in it, of the Sad- 

 ler's Jack Pear, bears one year with another 20,000 fruit. These orchards 

 mostly consist of pears: Chisel, Cuisse Madame, Bon Chretien, the Old 

 Catherine, and Autumn or Kilkenny Bergamot, which in this place is 

 famous for its superior flavour. 



Kilkenny lies in north latitude 52° 35', west longitude 7° 25'; about 40 miles 

 from the sea coast, and 500 ft. above its level. The soil in its neighbour- 

 hood is calcareous, for the most part gravelly, and seated on a gravelly 

 subsoil, or one of gravelly loam, under which in most directions limestone 

 rock may be met with. It possesses, also, strips of rich alluvial soil on the 

 banks of the Nore, on which some of its best orchards are to be found, 

 though planted two or three hundred years back. 



These soils are upon the whole eminently favourable to the flavour of 

 fruit ; but the climate, like that of the rest of Ireland, is adverse. High 

 winds and heavy rains are frequent, and its cloudy skies and moist 

 hazy atmosphere permit the direct radiant rays of the sun to penetrate 

 them but feebly. From the observations which I made in the year 1828 

 (and the heat of that year may be taken as an average), I found that the 

 mean of maximum heat, taken at 1 P. M. in the shade, during the months 

 of April, May, June, July, August, and September, which are the most 

 influential on the ripening of fruit, was 62° Fahr. ; while that of the radiant 

 sun heat taken at the same period in an open situation was but 67° ; an 

 excess of no more than about -^. The mean heat of the earth, 2 ft. deep, 

 was 57° ; and though only about one degree more to the north than Lon- 

 don, our fruits ripen a fortnight later, a month later than those of Paris, and 

 about a week earlier than those of Edinburgh. The grape, which ripens 

 on the open walls much farther north in England, though it sometimes 

 colours, yet, to my recollection, never ripened in the same situation but in 

 the years 1825 and 1826. Of the apple (though not numerous) we have 

 some fine old Irish varieties, not excelled by any of modern introduction. 



t Fruits transferred from their favourite situations to a warmer cli- 

 mate usually degenerate towards the extreme of mealiness ; to a colder 



M 3 



