Octohei- 3, 1872. : 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



2G9 



tree it does turn mealy if kept for a few days. In this respect 

 it does not differ from the other freestone Peaches, which 

 have a yellow or apricot flesh ; but surely in the case of a 

 handsome excellent late fruit as this is, it is worth while to 

 study its peculiarities, and either to gather it before it is dead 

 ripe, or to use it when it becomes so. There are many Apples, 

 Pears, and Grapes which do not keep after they are ripe. It 

 is curious that the clingstone yellow-fleshed Peaches never 

 become mealy or " pasty " however long they may be kept 

 after gathering.] 



RED HAWTHORNDEN APPLE. 



Among the great orchard districts there are many varieties of 

 fruits winch have a high local reputation, and whose merits 

 have never become generally known. The neighbourhood of 

 Worcester appears to be particularly rich in this respect, and to 

 the kindness of Mr. Richard Smith, the extensive nurseryman 

 of that city, we are indebted for fruit of two Apples we have 

 .not before seen. That which we now notice is called locally 



5 ^gaiSps^^^feE 



Keel I-lawthomden Apple. 



Bed Hawthornden, and from its size and earliness will prove a 

 very valuable variety. The fruit is large and oblate, with four 

 very obtuse angles on the sides ; the crown is flat, and there 

 is only a slight depression in which the eye is placed. Skin 

 smooth, greenish yellow, with a red blush next the sun. Eye 

 small and closed, set in a shallow depression. Stalk very short, 

 set in a very deep cavity. Flesh white, tender, and juicy, with 

 sprightly and agreeable acidity. 



This very early and valuable culinary Apple comes into use 

 in the end of August and beginning of September. Mr. Cox, 

 the indefatigable fruit-tree foreman to Mr. Smith, says of this 

 Apple, " The Red Hawthornden is an excellent grower as a 

 standard or trained, but not so suitable for a pyramid. The 

 - general size of the fruit is much larger than the specimen sent 

 some little time since, and is a valuable kitchen kind. It was 

 exhibited at the Worcester Show in 1869, and took a first prize." 



THE SUSSEX STANDARD FIG TREES. 

 Hebe I am in a district than which none retains more abun- 

 dant testimony of its Anglo-Saxon settlement. Within a 

 circuit of five miles round Tarring are eight towns and villages 

 with names ending in ing — Poling, Angmering, Patching, 

 Ferring, Goring, Sompting, Lancing, and Worthing. Now 

 "ing" is the Anglo-Saxon for a meadow, and meadow it was 

 probably along the whole of the flat strip of land between 

 the Southdown hills and the sea along the entire seabord of 

 Sussex. In that seabord between Arundel and Worthing 

 Fig trees as standards are numerous, luxuriant, and annuaUy 

 productive. The temperatures of each season there are mild, 

 tempered as the ah' is by its vicinity to the sea, and sheltered 

 from the north as the entire district is by the closely neigh- 

 bouring hills. The soil is a rich alluvial loam, and in many 

 places it is four' spades deep before you reach the subsoil, and 

 that is really a loam, but with more clay in it than is in the 

 surface soil. 



Market gardening, chiefly for vending the produce at Brighton , 

 is pursued rather largely at Tarring, Lancing, and Sompting. 

 Mr. Botting has a good-sized garden besides the Fig garden 

 at Tarring, and its productions were very creditable to their 

 cultivator. The Onions, both spring and autumn-sown, were 

 much above the average size. The Pear trees on the walls 

 are well trained and loaded ; but the most novel sight to me 

 was the border, about 100 feet long, beneath a south wall 

 cropped exclusively with Tomatoes. There were three rows 

 of staked plants, from which bushels of ripe fruit had been 

 gathered, and yet each plant was still loaded to excess with 

 fruit in various stages of ripeness. 



Waggons were loading this mid-September with baskets tilled 

 with Kidney Beans, Brussels Sprouts, and Potatoes. The 

 last-named here, and everywhere else around Worthing, arc 

 very slightly affected with the disease. I have always put the 

 same question to the men forking out the crop, "Are there 

 many diseased?" and the invariable answer has been, "No, 

 only a few." Cold and excessive moisture, are the most potent 

 promoters of the disease, hence the dismal reports 

 I have from North Lincolnshire and Scotland. A 

 letter from Dingwall just received says, " The rain 

 is almost incessant and daily, and the Potatoes 

 are nearly all diseased." No wonder! The market 

 gardeners on the Sussex coast employ large quan- 

 tities of seaweed as manure, and the luxuriance 

 of their Cabbageworts and Jerusalem Artichokes, 

 and the Potato's freedom from disease, attest that 

 it is especially acceptable to them. 



The district seems especially productive of vege- 

 table esculents, for the Morel (Phallus esculentus) 

 is found in Patching and Castle Goring Woods. 

 The Truffle also is prolific in this neighbourhood. 

 Cartwi'ight, in his history of the " Bape of Brarn- 

 ber," published in 1832, says, " About forty years 

 ago William Leach came from the West Indies 

 with some dogs accustomed to hunt for Truffles , 

 and proceeding along the coast from the Land's 

 End in Cornwall to the mouth of the river 

 Thames, determined to fix on that spot where he 

 found them most abundant. He took four years 

 to try the experiment, and at length settled hi 

 this neighbourhood, where he carried on the 

 business of Truffle-hunter till his death." Nor 

 was he the only humble celebrity who lived by and 

 loved the vegetable products of this neighbourhood. I rambled 

 to " the Miller's Tomb," and he who rests there not only loved 

 the country but loved his garden too. Many have wished, and 

 a few have succeeded, to have their bodies deposited in some 

 place that life's events had especially endeared to them. One 

 of the few was John Oliver, a miller, whose mill was on High- 

 down Hill. Near that mill, beneath the shade of a cluster of 

 trees, and on a spot commanding a panoramic view extending 

 as far to the westward as the Isle of Wight, he constructed 

 his own tomb twenty-seven years- before his death, and kept 

 beneath his bed the coffin which enclosed him in 1793. The 

 epitaphs on his monument were written and graven on it 

 during his lifetime, and this one offers an unnecessary 

 apology— 



" This is tho only spot that I have chose 

 Wherein to take my lasting loDg repose. 

 Here in the dust my hody lieth down. 

 You'll say it is not consecrated ground — 

 I grant the same ; hut where shall we e'er hud 

 The spot that e'er can purify the mind, 

 Or to the hody any lustre give ? 

 This more depends on what a life we live." 



When I took up my pen to write these notes, I intended to 

 confine them exclusively to the standard Fig trees of Sussex, 

 but have not arrived at them yet, nor shall I until a few 

 more sentences have been written, for I see that the Bev. 

 John Wood Warter, rector of West Tarring, in his amusing 

 " Parochial Fragments," doubts the Bomans having brought 

 the Fig hither. This seems to me a classical heresy. Be 

 that, however, true or untrue, it is quite certain that in the 

 thirteenth century they were so largely cultivated as to bo 

 specially mentioned by Matthew Paris as one of the fruits de- 

 stroyed by the inclement summer of 1257. Now, for the stan- 

 dard Fig trees of Sussex, and beginning with Arundel Castle. 

 Mr. Maher, who was gardener there in 1818, mentions that 

 seven such standards were in the garden, six being of the 

 Violette or Bourdeaux variety, and the seventh of the White 

 Marseilles. The last named was the largest, its stem being 



