IO 
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE APPLE AND PEAR. 
time), and the mustea (new-wine pears). This branch of natural economy has indeed already reached its climax, for there 
is no experiment which men have not tried, seeing that Virgil tells us of the arbutus grafted with the nut, the plane tree 
with the apple, and the elm tree with the cherry. Nor can any further discovery be made. It is certainly a long time since 
any new fruit has been discovered; nor indeed is it right that all grafts should be made without distinction, as for 
example that thorn-trees should be used as stocks, seeing that lightning strokes are not easily expiated, and it is laid down by 
the priests, that whenever a tree has been struck, as many lightning strokes must be accounted for, as there are kinds of grafts 
made. The form of pears is more turbinate than apples. Among them the late pears hang on the tree even until winter, and 
ripen with the cold, as do the Greek, the jar-shaped, and the laurel pears, and this is the case also with the Amerina and Scan- 
tiana apples. Pears are stored in as many ways as grapes. Except plums, it is only pears which are kept in jars. Wine may 
be made both from apples and pears, and doctors take advantage of this property in their treatment of the sick. They are 
prepared with wine and water, and serve the purpose of a cooling drink, which no other fruit but cotonca (quinces) and 
Struthea (sparrow apples) will give.” 
There can be little doubt that the Romans on their arrival in Britain found apples 
growing there ; for the crab is indigenous to the soil, and the apple is but a cultivated crab. Caesar 
makes no allusion to fruit. He describes the Britons as more a pastoral than an agricultural people. 
But some parts of the island, he says, were already fruitful in corn, especially, as it appears, in the 
districts inhabited by the Belgae ; who had recently crossed over from the Continent (DeBello Gallico , 
v. Tacitus, who in his Life of Agricola, gives the most interesting and trustworthy account 
of Ancient Britain, which has come down to us, does not mention either apples or pears, but 
expressly says : “ The soil is adapted for produce of all kinds, except the Olive and the Vine, and 
other things (fruit trees) accustomed to grow in warmer countries, (and is) fruitful: they are quick 
in coming, slow in ripening : both effects arising from the same cause, the excessive dampness of 
the soil and climate.” (Vita Agric. 12 ). There can be still less doubt that the Romans as they 
settled down in Britain, brought with them the varieties of fruit they had been accustomed to use 
in Italy, though there is no distinct record of their having done so. They ever loved to surround 
themselves with the plants of their own country, and it is to them we owe the introduction of 
the elm, the box, the walnut, the cherry, and the pear. The coarse pot-herb Alexanders, 
(Smyrnium olusatrum) is generally found in the neighbourhood of Roman earthworks, and 
unwittingly they brought the Roman nettle, (Urtica pilulifera) which still haunts some of the ruined 
Roman stations in England. From the country in which the Romans settled, the fruit there, would 
gradually spread through the country. In the third Century the Romans obtained permission, it is 
said, of the Emperor Probus to introduce the Vine into Britain, and soon made wine from the fruit. 
It is natural to suppose, also, that as the native inhabitants receded before the invaders, 
they too would carry with them their own varieties of apples into the most remote districts of the 
country. The Druidical legends, for such evidence as they may afford, support this idea. At a 
later period, during the fifth and sixth Centuries, there is some indirect evidence to show that this 
was the case. The native Britons sought refuge from the Saxons amongst the mountains of Wales, 
and many of them fled from thence to the North-Western coast of France, called Armorica, which 
in consequence of this emigration, received the name of Brittany, which it has since retained. From 
Wales they carried with them their apple trees, and one remarkable instance of their having done so 
