Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/405

 IN EARLY TIMES. 305 den." lie is said to have fctclied out of "Fraiincc grcate store of graftcs especially pippins : locfore vliieli time there was no right pippins in England. He fetched also, out of the Lowe Countries, Cherrie grafts, and Peare grnfts, of divers sorts." Henry the Eighth planted a great quantity of cherry- trees at Hampton Court through the agency of Harris ". The MULBERRY, or More tree, as it Avas called in the hftecnth century'', appears to have been grown in England from a very remote period; it is included in Necham's list of desirable fruits. The earliest notice of the gooseberry, which I have found, is of the fourth year of Edward the First, 1270, when plants of this genus were purchased for the king's garden at West- minster ; but as it is an indigenous fruit we may infer that it was known at a remoter time, though probably only in its wild state. Strawberries and raspberries rarely occur in early ac- counts, owing probably to the fact that they were not culti- vated in gardens, and known only as wild fruits. Strawberries are named once in the Household Koll of the countess of Leicester for the year 12G5. This plant does not seem to have been much grown even at the end of the sixteenth cen- tury". Lawson speaks of the roots of trees, in his model or- chard, being "jjoivdred with strawberries, red, white, and green." Raspberries, barberries, and currants, he describes as grown in borders. Both fruits behig indigenous would be found plentifully in the woods in ancient times, and thence brought to market as they are at the present day in Italy and other parts of southern Europe. Of NUTS the sorts conunon in this country from an early period appear to have been the chestnut and hazel-nut. The "large nuts" mentioned as growing in the garden of the earl of Lincoln in Holborn, were probably walnuts ; for although the exact period of the introduction of this variety is not known, it was generally cultivated as early as the middle of the fifteenth century, and the wood of the tree known by the name of " masere ;" whence, probably, the name given to those wooden bowls, so much prized in medieval times, called ma- zers ^. It has been supposed that these vessels derived their a Tlie accounts arc Still preserved; they d "Take many rype walenottcs and were formerly at the Chapter-house. water hem a while, and i)ut hem in a moiste '' MS. Uarl. IKJ, fo. 155, h. pytt, and hile hem, and ther shdbe grawe ' In the time of Henry Vlll. strawberry therof a grett stoke tlut we calle ma ere." roots sold at fourpence a bushell. Ilanip- Nicholas Hollarde's version of Godefridus ton Court Accounts, super Palladium, MS. Har IK), fo. 158.