Plate XI. 
THE NORMAN CIDER APPLES. 
“ Let foreign Apples in your Orchard live, 
Hence will your fruit be always of the best, 
And you with plenty of such kinds be blest.” 
Rapin , “ Of Gardens .” 
“ Fairest Apples Normandy adorn.” 
Rapin. 
In the Liber Landavensis, the British Monks, St. Teilo and St. Samson, are reported to have 
carried over a large quantity of apple trees from Monmouthshire to Armorica (Britanny), and to 
have planted there an orchard three miles in length (see Introduction Early History of the Apple and 
Pear , pp. io-ii.). In more modern times the advantage has been returned, and Norman Apples 
have been brought here. Lord Scudamore was the first to introduce them to Herefordshire; Mr. 
Foley and many others have imported them since his day. At the present time the Norman Cider 
Apples are in the highest esteem, and occupy a considerable share of the ground in all fresh 
plantations. They are so productive, as to cause it to be said, that since their introduction there 
has never been a complete failure in the apple crop. The saying is not strictly true, to wit the total 
failure in the years 1855 and 1858, but it affords, nevertheless, a great tribute to their hardihood and 
fertility. Another great proof of their extreme popularity consists in the fact that every unknown 
or nameless apple in the orchard, is at once called “Norman” : the orchards teem with them, and 
have done so now for many years. Marshall, in his Herefordshire Orchards (1796), first notices the 
tendency. He says, “ At Ledbury I was shown a Normandy Apple, said to have been imported 
immediately from France. On seeing and tasting the fruit, I found it to be no other than this 
Bitter Sweet , which I have seen growing as a neglected Wilding in an English hedge ” (p. 245). 
The habit has increased of late years to such an extent as to create the greatest confusion 
as to the right names, or want of names, of the many varieties of Cider Apples. 
In the year 1862, an enquiry was commenced in France, by the Horticultural Society of the 
Seine-Inferieure into the best varieties of Apples and Pears adapted to the production of Cider 
and Perry. This Society was joined by others, and annual meetings were held for several years in 
succession, until in the year 1875 a very careful and elaborate Report was published at Rouen. 
It was edited by M.M. de Boutteville and Hauchecorne, and besides the full description and analysis 
of the different varieties of fruit, it gives very good coloured drawings of those most esteemed. 
This “ Report,” in addition to some little experience, enables the comparison to be made; and 
it may safely be said that the so-called Norman Apples of Herefordshire, with very few exceptions 
are certainly not at this time the Apples of Normandy. The contrast is very marked and decided. 
It may be owing to the differences in soil, or climate, or situation, but it is there ; and the Pomona 
Committee of the Woolhope Club would be as completely at fault amongst the various apples that 
border the high roads of Normandy, as would M.M. de Boutteville and Hauchecorne in the more 
luxuriant orchards of Herefordshire. 
