322 



HISTORY OF THE VEfiETABLE KINGDOM. 



the East. Tlie prophet Joel, enumerating the 

 trees of Sjria, says, " the vine is dried up, and 

 the fig tree languislieth ; the pomegranate tree, 

 the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all 

 the trees of the field are withered." The culti- 

 vated apple was probably scarce at Rome in the 

 time of Pliny; for he states that there were 

 some apple trees in the villages near the city 

 which yielded more profit than a small farm. 

 The art of grafting was at that period either 

 very recently discovered, or comparatively little 

 known. This practice must evidently have be- 

 longed to an advanced state of civilization. It 

 is remarkable that Moses, in his directions to the 

 Israelites when they " shall come into the land, 

 and shall have planted all manner of trees for 

 food," makes no mention of the art of gi-afting. 

 Hesiod and Homer, in like manner, have no al- 

 lusion to a practice which would naturally have 

 formed part of their subject had it existed when 

 they wrote. The art of grafting, as well as that 

 of pruning, has been ascribed to an accidental 

 origin. The more vigorous shooting of a vine, 

 after a goat had broused on it, is said to have 

 suggested the one great principle in the manage- 

 ment of fruit trees ; and it is probable that the 

 occasional natural union of the boughs of distinct 

 trees may have shown the general practicability 

 of the other. Pliny mentions apple trees " that 

 will honour the first grafters for ever ;" and this 

 enthusiastic sort of praise belongs to the infancy 

 of an art, when mankind are first conscious of 

 its blessings, and therefore not disposed to un- 

 dervalue them through their familiarity. To 

 the facility of multiplying varieties by grafting, 

 is to be ascribed the amazing extension of the 

 sorts of apple, probably from one common stock. 

 The varieties at present known are considerably 

 more than a thousand. Of late years these va- 

 rieties have increased in a remarkable manner, 

 by the application of the pollen of one sort to 

 the blossom of another. 



Many of the better sorts of English apples 

 were probably at first introduced into this coun- 

 try from the continent. The greater part of 

 our names of apples are French, either pure or 

 corrupted. Those varieties which had been 

 celebrated abroad were spread through the king- 

 dom by their cultivation in the gardens of the 

 religious houses; and many of these fine old 

 sorts still exist. Thus the nonpareil, according 

 to the old herbalists, was brought from France 

 by a Jesuit, in the time of queen Mary, and first 

 planted in the gardens of Oxfordshire. Tlie 

 oslin, or Arbroath pippin, an ancient Scotch va- 

 riety, was either introduced or extensively cul- 

 tivated by the monks of the abbey of Aberbroth- 

 wick. On the other hand, the celebrated golden 

 pippin has been considered as the native growth 

 of England, and noticed as such by French and 

 Dutch writers. It is described bv Duhamel 



under the name oi pomme d'or, reinelte (P Angle' 

 terre. The same celebrated authority on fruit 

 trees, also mentions the grosse reinettc d'Angle- 

 terre. The more delicate apples for the table, 

 such as the pippins, were probably very little 

 known here till the latter part of the sixteenth 

 century. Fuller states that one Leonard Mas- 

 chal, in the sixteenth year of the reign of Henry 

 VIII., brought pippins from over sea, and 

 planted them at Plumstead in Sussex. Pippins 

 are so called because the trees were raised from 

 the pips or seeds, and bore the apples which 

 gave them celebrity without grafting. In the 

 thirty-seventh year of the same king we find the 

 barking of apple trees declared a felony ; and the 

 passing of the law had probably a relation to the 

 more extended growth of the fruit through the 

 introduction of pippins. " Costard-monger" is 

 an old English term for the dealers in vegetables, 

 derived from their principal commodity of apples; 

 the costard being a large apple, round and bulky 

 as the head, or " costard." If we may deduce 

 any meaning from this name, which is the same 

 as " coster," it would appear that the costard, or 

 large apple, was the sort in common use, and 

 that hence the name of the variety became sy- 

 nonymous with that of the species; the more 

 delicate sorts were luxuries unknown to the or- 

 dinary consumers of our native fruits, till they 

 were rendered common by the planting of or- 

 chards in Kent, Sussex, and other parts of the 

 kingdom. 



The growth of the more esteemed apple trees 

 had made such a general progress in half a cen- 

 tury, that we find Shakspeare putting these 

 words in the mouth of Justice Sliallow, in his 

 invitation to FalstafF: " You shall see mine or- 

 chard, where, in an arbour, we will eat a last 

 year's pippin of my own grafting." Sir Hugh 

 Evans, in the " Men-y Wives of Windsor," says, 

 " I will make an end of my dinner — there's pip- 

 pins and cheese to come." Pippins were, there- 

 fore, in the time of Shakspeare, delicacies for 

 the dessert. But in another fifty years the na- 

 tional industry had rendered the produce of the 

 apple an important article of general consump- 

 tion. The fine cider orchards of Herefordshire 

 began to be planted in the reign of Charles I. 

 The adaptation of these apples to the soil was 

 quickly discovered, and they spread over the 

 face of the whole country. Of the varieties of 

 the cider apples, the redstreaJc and the sline were 

 formerly the most prized ; and the cider of these 

 apples, and the perry of the squash pear, were 

 celebrated throughout Europe. At the time 

 when cider was first manufactured in England, 

 it was believed that it would almost wholly su- 

 persede the use of foreign wines. From the pe- 

 riod of the Norman conquest England carried on 

 a great wine trade with France, principally witli 

 Bordeaux and the neighbouring provinces. It 



