226 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



than as a Physician. The great Linnaeus as a young man came 

 to England to see him in 1736. On every occasion he was the 

 encourager and friend of gardeners, of which the following letter 

 is an example : — 



Sir Henry Goodricke to Sir Hans Sloane. Ribstan, near 

 Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire, lyjl- 

 Sir, 



The civilitys I have received from you do incourage me to 

 give the trouble of a letter, and knowing you to be one who loves 

 to incourage curiosity makes me hope that the subject of my 

 letter won't be so disagreable to you as to another. It is to 

 desire of you that if among your rarities you have any number of 

 seeds, nuts or kernells of foreign and rare trees especially those 

 that are hardy I shall verily thankfully pay for 'em, my pleasure 

 being to raise such things in hot beds and preserve 'em with 

 care ; and I would not rob you of any but what you have so 

 many as you may readily spare a part to one who will as readily 

 supply you again when any accident happens to yours, which I 

 believe y''^ are more subject to near London than we are, 

 here where I myself take the chief care of my curious trees. I 

 have not yet been able to procure a tree of the true lotus 

 {Zizyphus Lotus), nor the larch tree, both which Mr. Evelyn 

 says grow well in our climate, and may be raised from seed ; 

 these seeds and any other exotics I doubt not to raise, I mean 

 trees, for smaller plants are too numerous for me to attend ; if 

 you could procure me a small tree of each of those kinds I w*^ 

 repay you with thanks, being S'' y^" obliged and humble servant, 



H. Goodricke. 



There are three or four very fine larch trees in the grounds at 

 Ribston now, which are probably the very ones sent in answer 

 to this appeal. Sir Henry Goodricke was the introducer of the 

 well-known Ribston pippin. He had three pippins sent him 

 from Normandy about the year 1707, one of them grew up, and 

 was the original Ribston Pippin tree ; it was blown down in 1839, 

 but a sucker from the root is now a fair-sized tree, and still bears 

 occasional fruit. 



