l66 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1745. 



Orchards; and intimates, " Tiiat though the discovery of them was but then 

 lately made, yet they had gotten a great reputation." — He adds, " The croft crab 

 and white or red horse-pear excel them, and all others, known or spoken of in 

 other countries." Of the red horse-pear of Felton or Longland he observes, 

 *' That it has a pleasant masculine vigour, especially in dry grounds, and has a 

 peculiar quality to overcome all blasts." — Of the quality of the fruits he says, 

 " That such is the effect which the austerity has on the mouth on tasting the 

 liquor, that the rustics declare it is as if the roof were filed away; and that 

 " neither man nor beast care to touch one of these pears, though ever so ripe." 

 Of the pear called imny-winter, which grows about Rosse, in that county, he 

 observes, " That it is of no use but for cyder, that if a thief steal it, he would 

 incilr a speedy vengeance; it being a furious purger; but, being joined with well 

 chosen crabs, and reserved to a due maturity, becomes richer than a good French 

 wine; but if drank before the time, it stupifies the roof of the mouth, assaults the 

 brain, and purges more violently than a Galenist." 



Of the quality of the liquor he says, " That, according as it is managed, it 

 proves strong rhenish, backrac, yea pleasant canary, sugar'd of itself, or as rough 

 as the fiercest Greek wine, opening or binding, holding one, two, three, or more 

 years — that no mortal can yet say at what age it is past the best. This, adds he, 

 we can say, that we have kept it till it burn as quickly as sack, draws the flame like 

 naptha, and fires the stomach like aqua vitae." He says, " That he made trial at 

 his own house with wine d'Hay, by a merchant of Bristol highly extolled, which, 

 compared with a liquor made of crabs and wild pears, was so much inferior, in the 

 judgment of all, that the comparison was ridiculous." And he further relates, 

 " That a gentleman (Sir H. Lingen) a great planter, and expert in many experi- 

 ments, had then by him many tuns of liquor made with this mixture of fruit, 

 which he, by a designed equivocation, called pearmaine cyder, that carried the 

 applause from all palates — that all his common hedges yielded him store of thq 

 said fruit." 



To recommend this easiest, cheapest, and most profitable kind of agriculture, 

 as he calls it, he says, " That the best of these pears grow on very bare and sandy 

 hills, or vales ; crabs on any mound or bank that may be raised on a heath ; that 

 one pear tree ordinarily bears yearly 40, 50, 6o, 70 gallons of statute-measure, 

 and some 5, 6, or 7 times as much. Since I undertook this argument, adds he, 

 within 10 miles of this place we made in one year 50,000 hogsheads, as I exa- 

 mined, not by fancy, but by rule and inquiry , and this shows the hardiness of the 

 fruit. Let our noble patriots weigh, that this is not a thing in the air, but a 

 most certain and apparent truth, importing no less than the art of raising store of 

 rich wines on our common arable, on our hills, and waste grounds ; the charge a 

 trifle, the p^ns very small, the profit incredible. Hence my design is to urge the 



