no 
THE CRAB, ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND ASSOCIATIONS. 
at last a leafless rotten trunk, and its remains were carefully removed to Bidford Grange at the end 
of 1824. The engraving of the Crab-tree in the work alluded to, shows it to have had an hollow 
trunk of great size, and considering that it was probably a large and old tree when Shakspeare and 
his companions slept beneath its shade, it had very likely existed full 700 years, for the Crab is a 
long-enduring tree. 
Except for making a very sharp vinegar, it does not appear that crab apples have been much 
utilized in modern days, but a friend familiar with rustic appliances, tells me that in winter time 
before turnips and mangel-wartzel were much cultivated, cattle and sheep were frequently in hard 
frosts reduced to the miserable fare of gorse and ivy-leaves, when they got into a poor, lean and 
emaciated state. As a remedy for this, old Tusser in his quaint work on Husbandry prescribed the 
following recipe, in which “ Verjuice ” is the chief ingredient :— 
“ From Christmas till May be well entered in, 
Some cattle are faint and look poorly and thin ; 
And chiefly when prime grass at first doth appear 
Then most is the danger of all the whole year. 
Take Verjuice and heat it, a pint for a cow, 
Buy salt, a handful, to rub tongue ye wot how, 
That done with the salt, let her drink off the rest. 
This many times raiseth the feeble up best.” 
The same quaint writer under “ October’s Husbandry,” says :— 
“ Besure of Virgis, (a gallon at least), 
So good for the kitchen, so needful for beast: 
It helpeth the cattell so feeble and faint 
If timely such cattle with it thou acquaint.” 
But Verjuice is not so much needed now, and except perhaps as an application to sprains and bruises 
is but little used even in the country, though for pickling it is better than any other vinegar. 
Pippins in a rotten state, and no doubt Crabs would have done equally well, are mentioned 
in one of Beaumont and Fletcher’s Plays as a cure for bruised, or black eyes : 
“ Bring in rotten Pippins 
To cure blue eyes, and swear they came from China.” 
(The Honest Man's Fortune.) 
With regard to the old approved custom of “ wassailing ” the orchard trees, under the idea 
that they would bear better for the operation, that ancient almost worn-out ceremony appertains 
more to the Folk-Lore of the Apple ; but Johns in his “ Forest Trees of Britain,” mentions one 
curious Wassail observance in which Crabs are introduced, and it therefore deserves insertion, as 
showing that Crabs are still roasted, though for a less enjoyable purpose than hissing invitingly in a 
bowl of spiced ale. Johns says—after mentioning that in passing through Devonshire on the night 
preceding Twelfth Day, he had been alarmed by the report of fire-arms, and was told that it pro¬ 
ceeded from farm men who were firing in an orchard at the Apple-trees in order that they might 
