18 HISTORY. 



of varieties distinctly named or described by the 

 various authors already mentioned. u Apples of all 

 sorts," are mentioned by Tusser ; seven sorts by 

 Gerard;* Parkinson enumerates sixty-seven; Hart- 

 lib in 1650 alluded to one cultivator who possessed 

 two hundred, and believed there were not less 

 than five hundred ; Ray in 1688 says there were 

 seventy-eight cultivated in the London nurseries; 

 Forsyth in 1806 describes a hundred and ninety-- 

 six kinds ; George Lindley, in 1831, minutely and 

 accurately described two hundred and fourteen; 

 while the Fruit Catalogue of the London Horticul- 

 tural Society gives a list of fourteen hundred va- 

 rieties, collected and cultivated by that society, 

 three fourths of which were found to be either the 

 same fruit under different names, or else unworthy 

 of cultivation. The same remark will apply, at least 

 in part, to the many hundreds advertised for sale 

 in different nurseries in the United States. 



*It is of course evident from the very nature of the Apple, 

 and the facility with which new varieties are formed, 

 that this number was only a selection of a few ; as Gerard 

 himself says, " The fruit of Apples do differ in greatness, 

 form, color, and taste ; some covered with a redskin, others 

 yellow or green, varying exceedingly ; some very great, 

 some little, and many of a middle sort ; some are sweet of 

 taste, or something sour ; most are of a middle taste, be- 

 tween sweet and sour; the which to distinguish I think it 

 impossible, notwithstanding I hear of one that intended to 

 write a peculiar volume, of Apples, and the use of them." 



