April 22. THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 43 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M 
W 
APRIL 22—29, 1852. 
Weather near London in 1851. 
Sun 
Sun 
Moon 
Moon’s 
Clock 
i 
Day of 
Year, j 
» 
D 
Barometer. Thermo. 
Wind. Rain in In. 
Rises. 
Sets. 
R. & S. 
Age. 
bef. Sun. 
22 
Tu 
Apple flowers. 
29.480 — 
29.373 57—35 
N.E. 
26 
51 a. 4 
6 a. 7 
10 
19 
3 
1 
37 
113 
23 
F 
St. George. 
29.726 — 
29.682 64—38 
S'.W. 
— 
49 
8 
11 
23 
4 
1 
49 
114 
24 
s 
Apis Hypnorum seen. 
29.786 — 
29.762 63—39 
w. 
— 
47 
9 
morn. 
5 
2 
0 
115 
25 Son 
2 S. af. East. St. Mark. Prf. Al. 
B. 29.843 — 
29.841 58—31 
N.E. 
— 
45 
n 
0 
23 
6 
2 
11 
116 
26 M 
[Ds. Glou. 
B. 30.793 — 
29.668 62—25 
W. 
02 
43 
12 
1 
16 
7 
2 
21 
117 
27 Tu 
29.613— 
29.551: 52—25 
N. 
— 
41 
14 
2 
0 
3) 
2 
31 
118 
28 W 
Cabbage Butterfly seen. 
129.659— 
29.603 55—30 
W. 
02 
39 
16 
2 
37 
9 
2 
40 
119 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-five years, the average highest and lowest tempera¬ 
tures of these days are 59.5° and 37-9° respectively. The greatest heat, 80°, occurred on the 25th in 1810 ; and the lowest cold, 25° on the 25th 
in 1827. During the period 92 days were fine, and on 83 rain fell. 
The history of the apple in Britain is traceable to the 
earliest period of which we have any written record. We 
are even fully warranted in believing that this fruit was 
known and cultivated by the Britons before the arrival of 
the Romans upon our shores, for in the We4sh, Cornish, 
Armorican, and Irish languages and dialects, it is denomi¬ 
nated the Avail or Aball. The fruit, therefore, had a native 
name, from which our present name, apple, is evidently 
corrupted; and the Hoedui, inhabitants of the modern 
Somersetshire, appear especially to have cultivated this 
fruit. Their chief town even derived its name from the 
circumstance of its being surrounded by plantations of the 
apple, for it was known as Avallonia (Apple Orchard) when 
first visited by the Romans. Glastonbury stands upon its 
ancient site. ( Richard’s Chron., 10.) The cultivation of 
the apple was not confined to our south western districts, 
for another town named after it, Avallana, was in the north 
of England, and in the course of the third century we have 
decisive testimony that the Roman settlers had introduced 
fresh varieties of this fruit, and that its cultivation had 
become so extended that large apple orchards had been 
made as far north as the Shetland Islands. ( Solinus , cap. 
xxii.) Traces of ancient orchards are still existing in those 
high northern localities, and one in the Hebrides, belonging 
to the Monastery of St. Columb, is described by Dr. Walker 
as having existed there, probably, from the sixth century. 
( Essays , ii. 5.) Others are mentioned by Camden and 
Leland. It is quite certain that in the middle ages the 
apple had become one of our staple vegetable products, for 
whenever the chroniclers speak of times of dearth, apples 
are almost always mentioned as articles causing distress by 
their scarcity; and in the Remembrance Office a MS. exists 
in Henry VII.’s (1485—1509) own handwriting, in which 
he records that on one occasion apples were from one to 
two shillings each, a red one fetching the highest price. 
When our agricultural and horticultural literature com¬ 
mences, we find that Fitzherbert, in his “ Book of Hus¬ 
bandry,” published in 1598, has many, and, in most in¬ 
stances, good directions for the culture of the apple. They 
are, unlike the works of his contemporaries and immediate 
successors, the evident results of experience, and not mere 
translations from the classic Geoponic writers. Thus, on 
grafting the apple, he says, “ Graft that which is got of an 
old apple-tree first, for that will bud before the graft got 
on a young apple-tree late grafted in. For all manner of 
apples a crab-tree stock is good, but the apple-tree stock is 
much better.” The varieties of the apple had now much 
increased, for Dodoeus, writing in 1583, says they were so 
numerous “that it is not possible, neither necessary, to 
number all the kinds." Gerard, writing of this fruit in his 
“ Herball," during 1597, also speaks of the infinite varieties 
of the apple, but seems to attribute the variation much “ to 
the soil and climate.” “ Kent,” he goes on to say, “ doth 
abound in apples of most sorts. But I have seen in the 
pastures and hedge-rows about the grounds of a worshipful 
gentleman dwelling two miles from Hereford, called Mr. 
Roger Bodnome, so many trees of all sorts, that the servants 
for the most part drink no other drink but that which is 
made of the apples. The quantity is such that the parson 
hath for tithe many hogsheads of syder. The hogs are 
fed with the fallings, which are so many that they will not 
taste of any but the best." Though the varieties were so 
numerous, Gerard gives drawings of but six, which we may 
presume were the most in favour, and were the Pome-water, 
Baker’s-ditch, King Apple, Queening or Queen Apple, Sum¬ 
mer Pearmain, and Winter Pearmain. Heresbach, who 
wrote a little earlier (1570), says the “ cheefe in price ” were 
the Pippin, the Romet, the Pome-royal, and the Marligold. 
Sir T. Hanmer, writing about the year 1000, says the 
principal apples were “ Summer Pepin, Holland Pepin, 
Russet Pepin, Kentish Pepin, the best supposed in England, 
Russeting, Gilliflower, Muscadine Queen, .John Apple, King 
Apple, Golden Reinette, the Royal, Hollow-crowned, and 
Common Pearmains, Old Wife, Nonesuch, Figg Apple ; all i 
these are sold at 8d. the tree, except the Figg Apple, which j 
is 5s.” ( Gard . Chron., 1843, 841.) 
AVe quite agree with Air. Knight, Dr. Martyn, and other ' 
vegetable physiologists, in thinking that no kind of apple now ! 
cultivated appears to have existed more than two or three I 
hundred years; and this term does not at all exceed the 
duration of a healthy tree, or of an orchard when grafted on 
crab-stocks, and planted in a strong, tenacious soil. From 
the description Parkinson, who wrote in 1029, has given of 
the apples cultivated in his time, it is evident that those now 
known by the same names are different, and probably new 
varieties ; and though many of those mentioned by Evelyn, 
who wrote between thirty and forty years later, still remain, 
they appear no longer to deserve the attention of the 
planter. The Moil, and its successful rival the Redstreak, 
with the Musts and Golden Pippin, are in the last stage of 
decay, and the Stire and Foxwhelp are hastening rapidly 
after them. (Knight on the Apple, 0.) 
Except by some overwhelming convulsion—such as the 
Deluge—we believe that no species ever becomes extinct, 
but it is quite otherwise with varieties and hybrids. These, 
like all other devices of man, have their limited period of 
existence, which by no human ingenuity can be pro¬ 
tracted. Some authorities assert that grafting is a mode of 
thus protracting vegetable life, but from these we totally i 
differ. It is, happily, quite true that grafting upon a young 
and vigorous stock imparts to the scion a supply of sap of 
which the parent stem is incapable, yet this failure is only 
premonitory of the departure of power which will, after a 
transient increase of strength, occur to its removed member. 
Every subsequent scion, however frequently, and whilst in 
apparent health, removed to another youthful stock-, will be 
found to have a period of renewed vigour and productiveness 
of shorter duration than its predecessor. The Golden 
Pippin is occasionally quoted as a contrary proof, but this 
example has no such weight; for, supposing that this fruit 
yet exists, still it has not passed the age beyond which the 
period of unproductiveness and death in the apple-tree may 
be delayed by grafting, for we have no mention of this fruit 
that at all justifies the conclusion that the Golden Pippin 
existed much more than three centuries ago. A Pearmain 
apple is mentioned in records as old as King John (1205), 
but the Pippin is not noticed by any authority earlier than 
the reign of Henry VIII. (1509). 
Supposing, then, that the Golden Pippin of our days is a 
genuine portion of the trees of 1*>09, handed down to us by 
successive graftings, yet still, though in extreme decrepi¬ 
tude, it has not exceeded the age assigned by naturalists as 
that beyond which the life of the apple does not extend. 
But then another question will arise, supposing our Golden 
Pippin does not appear to survive the allotted period. Who 
will undertake to demonstrate that the Golden Pippin of 
1509 still exists ? It is quite certain that a majority of 
the apples for which the title of Golden Pippin is claimed 
No. CLXXXVL, Vol. VIII. 
