132 Gleanings in Old Garden Literature. 



sort of crude beverage extracted from it, 

 which, under the name of verjuice, was 

 largely utilized in ancient cookery. In recent 

 times, moreover, as at Kirke's Nursery, at 

 Old Brompton, grapes were reared with 

 success for wine; and no doubt both the 

 white and black small sorts in favourable 

 seasons may still serve such a purpose on an 

 inconsiderable scale ; but that England could 

 have ever produced grapes as she produces 

 other crops, or that the manufacture was 

 ever used at the tables of the great and rich, 

 I apprehend to be most improbable. 



Yet Lysons, in his Environs (1795), refers 

 to a caper tree in the garden at Campden 

 House, Kensington, as having flourished and 

 borne fruit every year for a lengthened period 

 in the open air. It was sheltered from the 

 north, and looked to the south-east. 



In the fifteenth century it was not a 

 bunch, but a branch of grapes. 



Mead, which was among ourselves, in a 

 ruder condition of social development, a 

 staple article of supply and a favourite 

 stimulant, and for which recipes are found 



