VARIETIES OP THE APPLE. 265 



the trees of Syria, in the following passage : " The vine 

 is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth : the pomegra- 

 nate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even 

 all the trees of the field are withered." (Chap. i. v. 12.) 

 Apple-trees and their fruit are also mentioned several 

 times in the Canticles, and allusion is likewise made to 

 the fruit in the Book of Proverbs. But those peculiar 

 arts which have so greatly increased the value of fruit- 

 trees appear to have been discovered at a much later 

 period. No mention is made of the art of grafting, for 

 instance, throughout the Old Testament Scriptures ; yet 

 it must have been well known to the Romans at the 

 time when St. Paul wrote his epistle to them, for he 

 illustrates the position of the Gentiles in the church of 

 Christ, by comparing them to a wild olive-tree, grafted 

 contrary to nature into the true olive-tree, from which 

 some of the branches (the Jews) had been broken ofi". 

 The Roman historian Pliny, also, mentions the art of 

 grafting, describing certain apple-trees which would 

 " do honour to the first grafters for ever." 



The better sorts of apples were gradually introduced 

 into England from the Continent ; but there is one sort 

 maintained by some writers to be of the native growth 

 of this country. This is the golden pippin, a very 

 small but delicious apple, called by French writers 

 pomme d'or, and also Reinette d' 'Angleterre. Of the most 

 ancient sorts procured from abroad were the Nonpareil, 

 said to have been brought from France by a Jesuit in 

 the time of Queen Mary, and first planted in the gar- 

 dens of Oxfordshire ; and the Oslin or Arbroath Pippin, 

 a Scotch variety, either introduced or extensively cul- 

 tivated by the monks of Aberbrothwick. The more 

 delicate apples for the table seem to have been little 

 known until the end of the sixteenth century, but from 

 that period they made great progress. In the time of 

 Shakspeare pippins were among the delicacies of the 

 dessert, and fifty years later, apples had become a very 

 general article of national consumption. It was in the 



