THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE APPLE AND PEAR. 
23 
Centuries as the communications with the Continent became greater, the quantity would naturally 
increase. It was, however, the Norman conquest that gave the first great impetus to the wine trade 
with France. The quantity of wine introduced by William and his followers from Bordeaux and 
the neighbouring provinces, became considerable. The Vine itself, which had before been intro¬ 
duced by the Romans, was again carefully planted, and every effort was made by the Normans to 
establish it here. This is proved by the fact, that there are no less than thirty-eight entries of 
vineyards in Domesday Book. The quantity of French wine imported was again much increased 
when Henry II, married the daughter of William Duke of Aquitaine, and thus added the provinces 
of Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Poitou, Saintonge, Guienne, and Gascony to his dominions. From this 
time the consumption of wine became general, and kept increasing, until the demand for it became 
greater than the supply; a fact which possibly indicates also, a considerable increase of wealth 
amongst the middle classes of society. The price of wine was regulated by enactment, and its 
quality ordered to be tested twice a year. In 1396 (Edward III.) a statute has this remarkable 
expression in its preamble :—“ The King wills of his grace and sufferance that all merchant 
denizens, not being artificers, shall pass into Gascoign to fetch wines thence to the intent that by 
this general license greater plenty may come.” Still the demand increased and the price got higher 
until the middle of the fifteenth Century, when no wine was permitted to exceed the price of 
twelve pence the gallon, and a law was made that “ No person, except those who could spend a 
hundred marks annually, or were of noble birth, should keep in his house any vessel of wine 
exceeding ten gallons.” 
When England lost the French provinces and frequent wars arose between the two 
countries culminating in bitterness and hatred between the people, as they did in the reigns of 
William III. and Anne—all commerce was necessarily restricted, and every effort was made to 
supply the place of the French wines. The manufacture of home-made wine of every kind was 
encouraged, and then it was, too, that the production of cider was pushed forward, its use generally 
inculcated, and its praises vaunted to the utmost by our poets :— 
“ What should we wish for more ? or why in quest 
Of Foreign Vintage, insincere and mix’t 
'Traverse th’ extremest World ? Why tempt the Rage 
Of the rough Ocean when our native Glebe 
Imparts from bounteous Womb, annual recruits 
Of wine delectable, that far surmounts 
Gallic or Latin grapes, or those that see 
The setting Sun near Calpe’s £ towering height ? ’ 
Nor let the Rhodian nor the Lesbian Vines 
Vaunt their rich Must, nor let Tokay contend 
For Sov’ranty; Phanseus self must bow 
To th’ Ariconian Vales.”— Philips . 
It has thus been shown that the time of the origin of Herefordshire orchards and of the 
cider and perry made from their fruit is very uncertain. We have strong negative testimony from 
Bishop Swinfield’s Roll, that they did not exist at the end of the thirteenth Century. At the end of 
the sixteenth Century, we have again the very positive evidence oi old Gerarde, not only of the 
