II. 
GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 
Woolhope Club, grafts of all the most esteemed varieties of apples grown in their garden at 
Chiswick. Large bundles of excellent grafts of ninety-two different varieties came down, and were 
distributed with much care amongst the members. This generous gift was highly appreciated, and 
it encouraged very greatly the study of Pomology in the county. In the first instance it tended to 
improve very much the private gardens, by creating the desire to grow good fruit, and to learn the 
right names of those that were growing there ; next it gave rise to the formation of a Special 
Committee in the Club ; to the establishment of Apple and Pear Shows under its influence ; and led 
eventually to the publication of the present work. 
The study of Pomology is rather beyond the domain of a strictly Scientific Society ; but the 
members of the Woolhope Club had become strongly impressed with the necessity of some 
great effort to restore Herefordshire to its true fruit-growing supremacy ; to call the attention of the 
growers to the best varieties of fruit for the table and the press ; to improve the methods followed in 
the manufacture of Cider and Perry, and the quality of these products ; and thus to increase in every 
way the marketable value of its orchard products. The Herefordshire Agricultural Society was 
unable to take up the subject, and no other Society, or persons, could be found to undertake the 
great labour and expense required to carry it to a practical issue. For these reasons, the members 
unanimously consented that the organisation of the Woolhope Club should be rendered available for 
the purpose, impelled, not only by the excellent beginning just mentioned, but also by the desire 
to render some useful return to the landed proprietors of the county, for the very kind way in which 
their gardens, parks, woods, and fields, have ever been thrown open to the researches of the Club. 
In the production of this important work, the Club has been especially fortunate in obtaining 
the gratuitous assistance of the learned pomologist, Dr. Hogg —a man of European reputation— 
who, in accepting the position of Technical Editor, gave a guarantee to the scientific correctness of 
the Pomona. Dr. Hogg met the wishes of the Committee in a cordial and generous spirit, and 
placed the stores of his knowledge—the fruits of life-long study—entirely at its disposal. To him, 
therefore, the Woolhope Club has the pleasure of offering its best and most grateful thanks. 
The Club has also been greatly favoured by the gratuitous services of two ladies who 
undertook the preparation of the illustrations for the Pomona, thus removing a difficulty, which, 
under less fortunate circumstances, might almost have proved insurmountable. Miss Ellis 
had just come to reside in Hereford when the work was under consideration, and on 
learning the object which the Club had in view, and the disinterested spirit in which 
it was undertaken, she most kindly and most generously offered her services. Miss Ellis is a 
Oueen’s gold medalist of the Bloomsbury School of Art, and possesses talents of no mean order. 
She was joined by Miss Bull, and together, these two ladies have worked most perseveringly for the 
benefit of the Club. It is not too much to say, that in this their labour of love, they have spent all the 
sunshiny hours of eight autumnal seasons in succession. How admirably they have succeeded, the 
Plates of the Pomona demonstrate. The correct representations of the fruit, so essential in a work 
of this nature, under their skilful hands, have become pictures; and the great beauty of these 
illustrations, which are superior to anything hitherto produced, is the charming result of their labours. 
