21 
the pith, or heart of the tree, and back again, and they 
grow by adding rings one without the other. 
Ourbestand most useful fruit tree is the APPLE (PI. XXX, fig. c.), 
which little girls will not like the worse for hearing that old 
fashioned wooden dolls, and I believe Dutch dolls still, are 
made out of the hard Apple wood. The Apple tribe all 
have very hard wood, leaves growing in clusters, from new 
shoots every year put forth by the branches, and fine white 
or delicately pink petals, loosely attached above a round 
swelling germ, out of which grow the five sepals of the 
calyx, and a great profusion of yellow stamens, and five 
straight styles. By and by the germ, still retaining the 
calyx as a sort of crown, swells into a fruit with five 
partitions, each containing two seeds, and the whole en¬ 
closed within solid firm flesh, covered with a rind brilliantly 
coloured with red, green or yellow. Left to themselves 
the fruits are very hard, and almost worthless, but they 
are greatly improved by cultivation, and as they can be 
grafted, the varieties are carried on from stock to stock. 
The wild crab tree has most beautiful delicate white flowers, 
pink outside, and the buds of the deepest rose colour, and 
the fruit is round, and so brightly coloured as to be very 
beautiful but so full of acid that no one could eat them — 
However, before the times of history the sour crab had 
been improved into the excellent apple, and infinite varie¬ 
ties had been produced, still wearing the glorious beauty 
of their pale blushing blossom, but enlarging the fruit, 
softening it, and either adding sugar to temper the acidity, 
or filling it with a profusion of juice. Orchards are spread 
every where in the Northern Temperate Zone, filled with 
the low old trees, with bushy heads, and bending trunks, 
covered with rugged bark. In early summer, the gar¬ 
lands of pink and white, cover them like a veil, in the 
Autumn, every bough is laden, sometimes so as to break 
with the weight, with the long bunches of brilliant red 
and yellow fruit. Normandy in France and our counties of 
Devon and Worcester are the most noted for their Orchards, 
the fruit is in Autumn gathered or beaten off, and the 
juice when crushed out is fermented into the liquor called 
Cider, the favorite drink in these regions. 
It is the custom at old farm houses to go out at Twelfth night 
with a bowl of cider, and drink the health of each Apple 
tree, singing 
“Here’s to thee old Apple tree 
Whence thou mayst bud and whence thou mayst blow 
And whence thou mayst bear Apples enow. 
Hats full, caps full 
Bushels full, sacks full 
And my pockets full too?” 
Sometimes they throw the remains at the tree, sometimes 
they treat it more uncivilly by shooting at it with a charge 
of powder. Cider Apples are generally very acid, and so 
are the Apples grown in Gardens to be used in tarts, or 
sliced in mince pies, but many kinds have a large propor¬ 
tion of sugar, and are eaten raw by all boys in the 
country. These are generally less handsome than their 
sharper brethren, though the QUARENDON is quite as 
crimson as that in the picture, and the GOLDEN PIPPIN 
now nearly worn out, is a bright little yellow Apple. 
Some have grown in England for a very long time, we 
hear of pippins in Shakespeare, and NONPAREILS, were 
brought here in Queen Mary’s time. 
PLATE XXXI. THE PEAR (ft) is very like the Apple, the 
flower is however quite white, and the Anthers before ope¬ 
ning, are deep pink, but after they have discharged their 
pollen, turn black. The tree is of taller and straighter 
growth, the leaves not woolly like-those of the Apple, 
and the fruit tapers off suddenly towards the stem. The 
wild pear is nearly useless, but cultivation has made it 
nearly as valuable as the Apple. The Counties of Here¬ 
ford, Gloucester, and Worcester grow noble trees, which 
in May raise pyramids of white bloom, like sunny clouds 
aga nst the blue sky. These furnish innumerable pears to 
be crushed and fermented into Perry, and scareely a 
Garden but can shew numerous trees bearing pears full 
of white sweet juicy flesh, softer and sweeter than the 
Apple. The pear tree will live longer than the Apple, 
and is often found still flourishing when it cannot be less 
than 500 or 600 years old. 
THE MEDLAR (c) is a near cousin to the beautiful May Thorn. 
Their blossom is still like that of the Apple in character, but 
the fruit remains flat at the top, with the sepals projecting 
from it even after it is ripe. Medlars are never eaten till 
they are almost rotten, and are far less used now than 
formerly. 
THE QUINCE (a) has ten pistils instead of five, and the blush 
coloured flower is small and insignificant. The fruit is sha¬ 
ped like a pear, of a rich yellow colour, and a very strong 
scent. — It is not fit to eat raw, but is excellent mixed 
with Apples in a tart, and when preserved becomes an 
excellent, deep red juicy sweetmeat, either whole or made 
into Jam. 
Another large division of our best fruits, belong to a race which 
have woody stems, either trailing or bushy, beautiful pin¬ 
nate leaves, no corolla but a small fivefold calyx, enclo¬ 
sing five stamens, and a single style with a round germ 
which becomes a bag of sweet yet sharp pulp, containing 
five pear shaped seeds. 
The Monarch of this race is THE VINE, a noble plant, living 
to a great age, and thriving the more, the more it is pru¬ 
ned. — The stems require support, and to obtain it, they 
send out their beautiful spiral tendrils which curl round 
branch or twine upon stones, and take firm hold for the 
plant to mount by. The leaves are beautiful in form, and 
in their rich green tint, fading towards Autumn into 
bright red and purple, and growing in such profusion 
that they are a delightful shelter from the sun, and to sit 
under his own Vine and his own fig tree seemed to the 
Israelite the perfection of home rest and comfort. The 
little green blossoms appear in the spring, but soon fall 
off, and the young grape enlarges, and from deep green 
becomes either of a paler tint or assumes a deep rich purple, 
Plate XXX (tZ), while the weight draws down the cluster, 
and the bunch of grapes hangs down, a beautiful heavy 
pendant cluster, of many and many a round juicy grape, 
upon the small branched footstalks within. 
The Vine in full bearing is indeed a glorious sight, even upon 
a cottage wall in England, or cooped up in a hot house, 
where the grand leaves and drooping clusters form so beau¬ 
teous a canopy—but in the more favoured climates of the 
South, it is a perfect wonder of loveliness, trained along 
the sunny slopes of the Alps on the Italian side, or clothing 
the lofty Elm with its luxuriant beauty. 
Vineyards are less beautiful than might have been expected 
for the vines are kept closely cut that they may bear 
better, and are either trimmed upon poles like hops, or 
made to grow in low bushes like gooseberries, or trained 
on long rods like espaliers. At the vintage, all the popu¬ 
lation men, women and children turn out to gather in 
the beauteous harvest, and bear it home in baskets on 
their backs, wreathed with vine leaves and keeping 
holiday. The juice is trodden out in large tubs by men 
with bare feet, and it is then set to ferment, by which it 
loses all impurities. This Wine is used all over Southern 
Europe as the common drink of the people, as Beer and 
Cider are further North; but it is only in Spain, Portugal, 
eastern France and on the Banks of the Rhine that it is 
good enough to be made an article of commerce. Spain 
sends out the wine that used to be called Sack, the chief 
of which comes from Xeres, and is therefore known by 
the name of Sherry, — the red wine called Port is from 
Oporto in Portugal. While France and Germany send 
out much more light and sparkling wines. Sometimes 
it is even made in England, and was so, much more 
often before it became easy to import it from other coun¬ 
tries. The vine is not only the most beautiful but the 
most honoured of plants — we find it continually spoken 
of in the Bible, almost in every book either as a token of 
prosperity and fertility, or as an emblem of the holy 
nation itself, tended and watched, pruned and guarded, 
but alas ! too often bringing forth wild fruits, until they 
so far transgressed that the once “pleasant plant” was 
given up to the wild boar out of the forest, and the new 
vine was grafted in, and called upon to bring forth fruit 
worthy of Him who said 
“I am the true vine”. 
A very small vine called the vine of Corinth is grown in the 
Ionian Islands to supply the dried currants (corinths) 
which are what children like to see mottling the face of 
cake or pudding. It was from their likeness to these true 
currants that the bright red, black and white hunches of 
6 
