40 FAMILIAR TREES 
of Apples was infinite.” John Parkinson, in his 
“ Paradisus Terrestris” (1629), enumerates fifty-seven 
sorts ; and though Ray in 1688 only mentions seventy- 
eight as grown round London, his friend and contem- 
porary, Samuel Hartlib, alludes to the existence of 
two hundred kinds. At the present day there are 
stated to be five thousand varieties in cultivation. 
The sapwood is a dull white, but the heart a dark 
brown, heavy, very hard and taking a high polish. 
Crab-tree cudgels are proverbial for their hardness 
and the wood is also used for mallets and turnery ; 
but is brittle and apt to warp. 
In many an old manor-house, where a generation 
ago there was no lawn, as at present, or at most a 
green bowling-alley, shut in by a Yew hedge, the 
orchard of cider-apples, in whose long grass grew 
Winter-aconite, Snowdrops, and Daffodils, was planted 
close to the parlour windows, and the trees may 
yet remain to give an old-world charm to the spot. 
