APPLE. 37 



seen the fruit of the pippin kind, for, in his account 

 of the pomum amoris, or love-apple, he says it is the 

 bigness of a goose egg or a large pippin. The pippin 

 appears to have been scarce even in the time of 

 Charles the First ; for in the valuation of the fruit-trees 

 at the royal gardens of his queen at Wimbledon, there is 

 only one pippin-tree mentioned. 



For some years past, it has been stated by several in- 

 genious writers, that many of our best varieties of apples 

 could no longer be cultivated with success ; that by 

 length of time they have become degenerated and worn 

 out. Mr. Knight, the president of the Horticultural So- 

 ciety, seems to have been the first that gave birth to this 

 idea. He says, in his Pomona Herefordiensis, that those 

 apples which have been long cultivated are on the decay. 

 The Redstreak and the Golden Pippin can no longer be 

 propagated with advantage. The fruit, like the parent- 

 tree, is affected by the debilitated old age of the variety. 

 Again, he says, in his Treatise on the Culture of the apple 

 and pear, page 6, " the Moil, and its successful rival the 

 Redstreak, with the Must and Golden Pippin, are in the 

 last stage of decay, and the Stire and Foxwhelp are hast- 

 ening rapidly after them." " It is much to be regretted/' 

 says Speechly, " that this apparently visionary notion of 

 the extinction of certain kinds of apples should have been 

 promulgated by authors of respectability, since the mis- 

 take will, for a time at least, be productive of several ill 

 consequences." Pliny notices the decay of apple-trees 

 in his time, and observes that the apple-trees become old 

 sooner than any other tree, and that the fruit becomes 

 less, and is subject to be cankered and worm-eaten, even 

 while on the trees. Book 16. c. 27. 



Columella seems to make the same allusion in his 10th 

 book : 



