COMMONPLACE NOTES. 
431 
cells in the leaves, instead of allowing them to collapse, as in the 
usual method. 
" This I did by passing the green leaves through a chaff-cutter, 
and then fermenting in mass : thus ensuring the nicotine being 
evenly distributed over the whole mass. Green leaves are infinitely 
easier to cut up than dry ones. When the leaves were sufficiently 
fermented, I sun-dried the mass by thinning the bulk to a depth 
of about two inches and then exposing it to the sun on a drying-shed 
of my own construction. 
" This is the principle upon which my drying-shed was con- 
structed : 
" Instead of taking the mass of tobacco (which weighs heavily) 
in and out of the shed at the approach of rain, I made a sliding 
roof which was drawn over the mass when needed. The roof in 
question was a light structure composed of a light bamboo skeleton 
framework, covered with a light palm-leaf thatch (Neepa Attaps). 
" The mass was spread upon five tiers of trays, which worked 
upon a central pivot, and which allowed the tiers to slope on either 
side as required, in order to face the sun. 
" The tobacco turned out in this manner I found to be far stronger 
in nicotine than the ordinary (which was due to my having fer- 
mented it more than I should have done for smo king-tobacco), and 
the process proved to be from start to finish at least seventy per 
cent, cheaper. 
" An adaptation or modification of this idea might, it seems to 
me, in these days of scarcity of labour, be used to advantage by 
growers of medicinal plants and others/' 
Apple ' Ribston Pippin.' 
Mr. R. V. Sherring, F.L.S., has recently presented to the Society, 
through Mr. H. Backhouse, F.R.H.S., a contemporary pencil sketch 
showing the condition of the original tree of the well-known apple 
' Ribston Pippin ' at Ribston Hall, Wetherby, in 1836. It depicts a 
storm-rent trunk of considerable girth and two still living but lan- 
guishing lateral branches supported horizontally by stakes forked 
at their tops. 
The story of the tree is told by Dr. Hogg in ' British Pomology ' 
(1851), p. 171. " The original tree was first discovered growing in the 
garden at Ribston Hall, near Knaresborough, but how, when, or by 
what means it came there has not been satisfactorily ascertained. One 
account states that about the year 1688 some apple pips were brought 
from Rouen and sown at Ribston Hall, near Knaresborough ; the trees 
then produced from them were planted in the park, and one turned 
out to be the variety in question. The original tree stood till 1810, 
when it was blown down by a violent gale of wind. It was afterwards 
supported by stakes in a horizontal position, and continued to produce 
fruit till it lingered and died in 1835. Since then a young shoot has 
