532 
12. The Carnation. Valuable for coming late: very firm and fleshy, but not the best bearer: it 
will ripen very well on espaliers. 
13. The Hertfordshire Heart: firm and well flavoured; does not ripen earlier than the end of July 
or the beginning of August. 
14. The Morello : generally planted against a north wall, and used for preserving; but in a better 
aspect, and suffered to hang till ripe, is a very good fruit for the table. On a S. W. wall the fruit will 
ripen perfectly by the middle of August. 
15. The Bleeding Heart. 
• 16 . The large Spanish Cherry, nearly allied to the Duke, of which it seems to be only a variety, 
and ripens soon after it. 
17 . The yellow Spanish Cherry; of an oval shape and an amber colour: it ripens late, is sweet 
but not of a rich flavour, and is but a middling bearer. 
18. The double-flowered, propagated solely for ornament. 
Other varieties are continually adding to these, differing little from the preceding, as— 
19 . Harrison’s Duke Cherry. 
20. Crown Heart Cherry. 
21. Turkey, &c. 
It is commonly asserted that Cherries were introduced into England in the time of Henry VIII. 
Mr. Gough, in his topography, says it is supposed that they were brought from Flanders into Kent by 
Richard Haines, fruiterer to that monarch. But we certainly had them sooner. We have no proof 
indeed that England was indebted to the Romans for Cherries and other fruits of warmer climates; 
or that they were here at the time of the Norman conquest, or during some centuries after it. 
A diligent and ingenious antiquary has however discovered written evidence which clearly shows, 
that before the middle of the fifteenth century, the hawkers in London were wont to expose Cher¬ 
ries for sale in the same manner as is now done early in the season. Lydgate, in the following 
lines from his poem called Likpenny , cited by Mr. Warton, in the History of English Poets, Vol. II. 
p. 367 , says 
“ Hot pescode own (one) began to cry, 
“ Strawberys ripe, and cherries in the ryse. J> 
That is, remarks Mr. Warton, he cried hot peas, ripe strawberries, and cherries on a bough or twig: 
rice or ris, being properly a long branch, and the word is still so used in the west of England. 
The tradition therefore respecting Haines’s having originally planted Cherry-trees at Teynham, 
may either mean that he was the first person who reared a Cherry orchard, or that he first introduced 
some particular Cherry, perhaps that which we call the Flemish Cherry,* if we had it not earlier. 
It is indeed extremely improbable, considering the magnificence of the times, and our intimate 
connection with France and Flanders, from the conquest to the destructive contentions between the 
houses of York and Lancaster, that we should not have imported such fruits as would bear our climate 
from those countries, unless they had been left us by the Romans. 
The above passage from Lydgate carries the written evidence for the cultivation of Strawberries 
higher than that which has been given by Stow and Shakspeare. What is meant by hot peas ? Surely 
not hot grey peas, which were commonly cried about London during winter even in this century; 
for they were in a dry state, and the poet would not have called them pescodeSj nor would he have 
joined them with strawberries and cherries. He probably intended what we now call Hotspur peas. 
* Gent. Mag. for 1786 . 1. 38g. Signat. W. & D. 
