Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/402

 302 STATE OF HORTICULTURE IN ENGLAND make. It should be noticed, however, as " Gold-knopes" are named above, that there is still a common Scotch pear called the " Golden Knap," which is possibly the very sort supplied to Edw^ard I., more than five centuries and a half gone by. The APPLE should be noticed with the pear. One sort only is named in any account of the thirteenth century that has fallen under my observation ; the " costard"^ ;" it occurs in the fruiterer's bills, already quoted, of the year 1292 : but as this fruit was very generally cultivated from an early time "^ there must have been many varieties known. The pearmain was certainly known by that name soon after the year 1200, as Blomefield instances a tenure in Norfolk by petty serjeanty, and the payment of 200 pearmains and 4 hogsheads of cider or wine made of pearmains, into the Exchequer, at the feast of St. Michael yearly "". Cider was largely manufactured during the thirteenth century, even as far north as Yorkshire ; thus in 1282 the bailiff of Cowick, near Richmond, in that county, stated in his account, that he had made sixty gallons of cider from three quarters and a half of apples^ It has been already remarked that our forefathers considered the apple to be a " soft fruit," and more wholesome than the pear : Necliam records that an apple swims when thrown into water, while a pear will sink. It may be interesting before proceeding to enumerate the other kinds of fruit generally cultivated duruig this century, to place before the reader a statement of the resources of a nobleman's garden in the year 1290; and I should remark that althouo-h it belono;ed to one of the wealthiest barons of that period, it was not, probably, better stocked, or more ex- tensive, than many annexed to the Cistercian abbeys of the same age ; that religious order being then pre-eminent for their skill in horticidture and for agricultural enterprize. P "Poma Costard';" they sold for one (moesiin.) Add. MS. 6159, fo. 220. Law- shilling the hundred. son, who lived in Yorkshire, thus describes 1 Malmesl)ury, speaking of Gloucester- the process of making cider and perry in shire, says, " Cernas tramites publicosves- his time, that is before 1597: "dresse titos poniiferis arboribus, non insitiva ma- every apple, the stalke, upper end, and all nus industria, sed ipsius solius humi na- galls away: stampe them, and ^trains tura." them, and within 21 houres time tunne ■■ History of Norfolk, voh xi. p. 242. ed. them up into cleane, sweet and sound ves- 1810. sels, for feare of evil! ayre, which they will ' In a tract on Husbandry, written in readily take : and if you hang a poeke full England early in the fourteenth century, of cloves, mace, nutmegs, cinamon, gin- we find itstatfd, under the rubric "coment ger, and pils of lemmons in the midst of horn deit mettrc le issue de sun estor a the vessell, it will make it as wholesome ferme," that x quarters of apples or pears and pleasant as wine. The like usage doth ought to yield a tun (/owO of cider as rent Perry require." A New Orchard, &c., p. 52.