Pomological Gossip. 77 



culture, by Mr. Mcintosh, the Editor, which cannot fail to be 

 of interest to all grape growers : — 



A bunch of Grapes was also exhibited from the same 

 place, to show a strange peculiarity in a sort, which has, 

 from extraordinary circumstances, within the last 25 years, 

 attracted considerable notice, and stands at present in rather 

 an equivocal position. This grape is the Chasselas Masque 

 of the French gardens, a grape apparently unknown to our 

 modern Noah's, from I^angley, Speedily, &c., down to Mr. 

 R. Thompson, the highest Pomological authority this coun- 

 try can boast of. It was enumerated by him in the earliest 

 editions of the Catalogue of Fruits cultivated in the London 

 Horticultural Society's Garden, and next after by Mr. Loudon, 

 in the edition 1835 of " The Encyclopaedia of Gardening," 

 as furnished by Mr. Thompson. It was introduced into 

 England by the London Horticultural Society, under the 

 name above given. 



Two circumstances in its history may be worth narrating. 

 Mr. Thomas Fairbairn, who preceded us as gardener to the 

 Prince Leopold of Sax Cobourg at Claremont, procured cut- 

 tings of this identical vine from a garden in Sussex, and be- 

 lieving it to be a new variety, as it had been represented to 

 him, propagated a number of plants of it, several of which 

 he gave us, which were planted in the Claremont gardens. 

 The remainder of these plants found their way into the es- 

 tablishment of one of the most respectable commercial fruit 

 cultivators in the neighborhood of London. This party 

 believing also that it was a new grape, and one of great 

 merit, propagated it extensively, and sold the plants at a 

 guinea each. It is unnecessary either to give the name of 

 the party, or that by which the vine was sold, as the idea of 

 its being distinct from the Chasselas Musque was no sooner 

 known to that excellent person, than he repudiated it, and 

 the name it held for a short time is now obsolete. 



We continued, however, to grow it at Claremont as a 

 supposed new variety, and there it obtained the name of 

 the Golden Drop. Sir Charles Monke and the late Countess 



