20 
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE APPLE AND PEAR. 
took its name of “ black” from the sable pears on the escutcheon. The heraldic association has 
given it a celebrity, which except for its size, it does not deserve. 
“To write of peares and apples in particular,” says old Gerarde in 1597, “ woulde require a 
particular volume : the stocke or kindred of peares are not to be numbred: eury countrey hath its 
peculiar fruite ; my selfe knowe some one curious in grading and planting of fruites, who hath in 
one peece of ground, at the point of three score sundrie sortes of peares, and those exceeding good, 
not doubting but if his minde had beene to seeke after multitudes he might have gotten togither 
the like number of those worsse kindes ; besides the diversities of those that be wilde, experience 
showeth sundry sorts; and therefore I thinke it not amisse to set downe the figures of some fewe 
with their seueral titles, as well in Latine as English, and one general description, for that, that 
might be said of many, which to describe apart, were to send an owle to Athens, or to number 
those things that are without number.” He then names some eight kinds of pears of which several 
are now well known—and goes on to say, “ The tame peare trees are planted in orchards as be the 
apple trees, Quorum varia insitione ex agrestibus mites ac edules fructus redditi sunt . All those 
before specified and many sortes more and those most rare and good, are growing in the ground of 
Master Richard Pointer , a most cunning and curious graffer and planter of all manner of rare 
fruites, dwelling in a small village, neare London, called Twicknam ; and also in the ground of an 
excellent graffer and painfull planter, Master Henry Banbury , of Touthill Streete, neare unto 
Westminster ; and likewise in the ground of a diligent and most affectionate louer of plantes 
Master Warner , neere Horsey Downe, by London, and in diuers other grounds about London (but 
beware the Bag and Bottle), seeke elsewhere for good fruit faithfully delivered.” 
The pear is a much longer lived tree than the apple; its wood is much more firm and less 
liable to decay. In Domesday Book an old pear tree is several times noted as the boundary mark 
to a manor or parish. In the fine deep soil of the old Abbey Garden at Lindores, on the sonth 
bank of the river Tay, in the county of Fife, there are old pear trees that still bear abundantly, 
though the apple trees have wholly disappeared. 
On the high road between Malvern and Worcester, at Monkland farm, Newland, there is 
an orchard of Barland pear trees, perhaps unequalled in the world. Tradition says these trees 
were planted by the Monks of Malvern, and if so, they must be three hundred years old. 
Mr. Edwin Lees in his “ Botany of the Malvern Hills ,” thus writes of them. “There are more 
than seventy lofty trees ; and in “ a hit” as it is called, the produce has amounted to two hundred 
hogsheads. It has been stated of a hopyarcl, that in particular years the value of the produce 
would be equal to the fee-simple of the land occupied by the plants. Almost the same might occur 
with a fine perry orchard. The one in question occupies five or six acres, and the price of perry 
varies from sixpence to one sliding and sixpence a gallon. Now, supposing the average price of 
per hogshead to be obtained in “the hit” a year, the perry produced would be worth £6oo, 
but “ a hit ” must not be expected every year. The trees are now becoming very old,” p. 62. 
Shakespeare mentions apples and pears, solely for the purpose of drawing some of his 
admirable similies from them. These are the passages :— 
1. 
A young man nearly full grown is 
“ A codling when ’tis almost an apple.” 
12th Night, I. 5. 
