PLATE L. 
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THE COSTARD APPLE. 
“The Wilding Costard, then the well-known Pomwater.” 
Drayton: Polyolbion , S. 18. 
The Costard is one of our oldest English apples. It is mentioned under the name of “ Poma 
Costard” in the fruiterers’ bills of Edward the First, in 1292, at which time it was sold for a shilling 
a hundred. The true Costard is now rarely to be met with, but at an earlier period it must have 
been very extensively grown, for the retailers of it were called “ Costard-mongers,” an appellation 
now transformed into “ Costermongers.” It is mentioned by William Lawson in 1597, who in his 
quaint style says : “ Of your apple-trees you shall finde difference in growth. A good pipping will 
grow large, and a Costard tree : stead them on the north side of your other apples, thus being placed, 
the least will give sunne to the rest, and the greatest will shroud their fellowes.” 
Modern authors make the Costard synonymous with the Cat's-head, chiefly on the authority 
of Mr. George Lindley, who has it so in his “Guide to the Orchard,” but this is evidently an error. 
All the early authors who mention both varieties regard them as distinct as they are shown to be in 
these illustrations. Parkinson describes two varieties, the “Gray” and the “ Greene.” Of the 
former he says : “ It is a good great apple somewhat whitish on the outside, and abideth not the 
winter. The Greene Costard is like the other, but greener on the outside continually.” Ray describes 
both the Costard and Cat's-head as distinct ; and Leonard Meager enumerates three varieties of 
Costard in his list, “ white, grey, and red,” but it is difficult now to determine these varieties. 
