Fruit-growing in Kent. 
93 
summer months is about 61°, and that of the three winter 
months about 38°. The average annual rainfall is about 
J(i inches. There is strong evidence that the climate was more 
genial in earlier times, as grapes were largely grown, and 
ripened out of doors, and wine was regularly made from them. 
Mention is made of vineyards — vinea? — in the records of the 
survey of Domesday, taken in the early part of the eleventh 
century. In the reign of Edward the Second, when that king 
was at Bockinfold in Kent, presents of wine and grapes were 
sent him from the vineyards near Rochester. Hasted states 
that he " knew two exceedingly fine vineyards in the county, 
one at Tunbridge Castle, the other at Banning, from which 
quantities of well-flavoured wine had been produced." In the 
parish of Hunton, at Buston, the former seat of the Fane family, 
there are remains of an old vineyard, and three distinct terraces 
rising above each other may be traced. These are faced with 
brick walls, and are protected from the north by a hill. This 
is called the " old vineyard " to this time, and fine fruits of many 
kinds are grown in great abundance on the rich soil of its 
sheltered slopes. It very seldom happens that grapes ripen 
thoroughly in these days, even in the hottest summers in the 
most sheltered spots of the county, or that grapes are grown 
out of doors at all fit for making wine. 
Grapes eannot be produced fit for wine-making purposes 
unless the summer temperature exceed sixty-four degrees. 
Humboldt, the authority for this statement, wrote : — " Taking 
an example, for instance, from the cultivation of the vine, 
we find that in order to procure potable wine, it is requi- 
site that the mean annual heat should exceed 49°, that the 
winter temperature should be upwards of 33°, and the mean 
summer temperature upwards of 64°." * From the fact that 
grapes do not ripen now in Kent as they did four or five 
centuries ago, it must be inferred that the climate has under- 
gone a change, that the mean summer temperature has gradually 
been lowered. This may be the reason why the old sorts of apple, 
the Ribston and Golden Pippin, and other more delicate sorts, 
do not thrive as well as those of later origin, and more to the 
manner born. It is suggested that this slight and gradual change 
in the climate of Kent is due in some degree to the clearing 
of the forests, with which parts of Kent were formerly covered ; 
such as the great Forest of Anderida, which extended from 
Lympne through the Weald of Kent into Hampshire, and 
Saenling Forest in the extreme east of the county ; with other 
forests, described by Mr. Furley in his ' History of the Weald,' 
* Humboldt's ' Cosmos,' vol. i. p. 331. 
