THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE APPLE AND PEAR. 
24 
existence of orchards in the fields and apple trees in the hedge-rows, but that cider was abundantly 
made and appreciated. The great probability, therefore, is that the peculiar adaptability of the 
soil in Herefordshire for the growth of apples and pears, became gradually appreciated in the 
course of the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries, as orchards spread from Kent and the neigh¬ 
bourhood of London into these more Western regions. In the seventeenth Century, when the 
political circumstances of the country called for a more abundant production of cider and perry, 
then the orcharding was greatly extended. It was, says Evelyn, “By the plain industry of one 
Harris, a fruiterer to King Henry VIII. (1509-47), that the fields and environs of about thirty 
towns in Kent only, were planted with fruit to the universal benefit and general improvement of 
that country to this day :—as by the noble example of my Lord Scudamore, (c. 1630-50) and of 
some other publick spirited gentlemen in those parts, all Herefordshire is become in a manner but 
one entire orchard.” 
In the reign of Charles I., Parkinson published his great work (1629), “ Paradisi in sole 
fiaradisns terrestris ,” or, “ A Garden of all sortes of pleasant flowers, with a Kitchen Garden of all 
manner of herbs and roots, and an Orchard of all sortes of fruit-bearing trees.” He describes 
fifty-eight sorts of Apples, and sixty-four kinds of Pears with numerous varieties of other fruits 
and plants. 
Then comes John Evelyn with his “ Pomona ” in 1664, and John Philips the Herefordshire 
poet, with his poem on “ Cyderl' (1700) both of whose works are so full of local interest, and will 
be so constantly quoted hereafter, that they must not be further alluded to in this place. 
The general introduction which will be published with one of the later numbers of this 
work—and, indeed, the descriptive account of several of the varieties of fruit illustrated, will take 
up the thread of history from this point. It will enter into the special adaptability of the climate 
and soil of Herefordshire for the growth of apples and pears, and its effects on the several 
varieties grown here—the manufacture of cider and perry, and all other matters of interest and 
use, which the inquiries instituted for this work may bring forth. 
The present paper may be well concluded by a dissertation on the health giving 
properties of “ Syder,” by the Rev. Martin Johnson, M.A., of Baliol College, Oxford, who was vicar 
of Dilwyn, from 1651 to 1698. The fact of longevity being characteristic of the county, is also 
happily borne out in these days by evidence that may, perhaps, be still more satisfactory to some 
people.—The returns of the Registrar General make Herefordshire one of the four longest lived 
counties. 
The following extract is taken from Dingley’s “ History from Marble ,” edited by Mr. Gough 
Nichols, for the Camden Society, (1868) who says : I received this memoriall from ye Vicar of 
Dilwyn (thus prefac’d) concerning his parish. 
Concerning The Longevity of the Syder-Drinkers of Herefordshire. 
Old age in many cases is a blessing, otherwise Abraham the father of the faithfull, had 
never had such a faithfull promise made him in Gen. xv. 55, that he should die an old man, which 
