Elizabeth Eiloart

“ This of itself would suffice to make the plant unwelcome to those short-sighted cultivators who hold the feathered race in deadly hatred as devourers of their grain, hearing in their sweetest songs only the impudent triumph of successful plunderers; but this is a prejudice abandoned by the more enlightened, who recognise the destruction of many insects as a service outweighing the consumption of a few seeds. ”

“ It is this Citron melon, too, which is the greatest favourite in America, being one of the finest grown there, and yet peculiarly easy of culture, the climate of the middle and southern States suiting it better than even any part of Europe, so that it is raised as a field crop by market-gardeners, and sold in August, in the markets of New York and Philadelphia, at the price of half-a-dollar for a basket containing nearly a bushel, proving even then one of the most profitable of crops. ”

“ It is to the French that we have owed most of our good older kinds, for they seem to have had the start of us in pear culture, since good sorts were known in France as early as in the thirteenth century. Foremost among our old fruits thence derived stands the Jargonelle, long since pronounced to be the queen of autumn pears, and which, still scarcely surpassed in flavour and quite unequalled in productiveness by any of her contemporaries of that season, seems hardly likely to be called on to abdicate her throne in favour of upstart modern rivals. ”

“ It might well, therefore, seem strange that a plant with so many recommendations, both as regards use and beauty, should be so seldom met with in our gardens, and in many places have been almost extirpated from even our fields; but better reason can be shown for the disfavour into which the barberry has fallen than can be adduced in every case for the neglect of native plants—a great objection to its being planted very near houses being the very offensive odour of the flowers. ”

“ At Paris the fruit never reaches perfection, for though it ripens after gathering, so far as to acquire a rich golden hue, and exhale its powerful scent, it remains so hard as to be quite unfit to be sent to table ”

“ Soft sister of the firmer apple, the pear displays so marked a resemblance to its relative that the most unobservant could scarcely fail to detect their kinship, yet is the difference between them sufficiently apparent on very slight inspection, and sufficiently great to justify Loudon in his wish that they may not always continue to be classed together in the same genus, as they are now by botanists too eminent for their decision to be disputed, even when it does not give perfect satisfaction. ”

“ Largest of all fruits, yet growing on the lowliest of fruit-bearing plants, the huge and heavy melon, attached to a stem which actually trails upon the ground, must abase itself to the very earth during the period of growth, though destined perhaps, when gathered, to be exalted to the table of princes. ”

“ Small sized, dumpy in shape, and dull in colour, it has been called the ugliest of fruits, but if we may so far adapt the old saying as to admit that "Handsome is that handsome tastes," no deficiencies in beauty will be perceived when once the palate revels in the honied spicy richness of the Seckel Pear, its flavour, quite peculiar to itself, being generally pronounced to be unequalled by any of its European kindred. ”

“ Such, according to the French poet, Nicholas Rapin, was the origin of the pomegranate: the persistent calyx of the blossom of this tree not only remaining, as in the case of the apple, gooseberry, &c., as a component part of the fruit, but, increasing in size after the petals have fallen, its tube becomes the outer rind which surrounds the berries within, while the segments, surmounting the fruit with a circle of sharply-toothed points, form thus no inapt resemblance to a crown. ”

“ An ancient medical authority affirms that "the red warden is of great virtue conserved, roasted, or baked to quench choler;" but as it would be libellous to suppose that cloistered serenity could itself require the fruit on this account, imagination is free to picture the benevolent recluses sending round a basket of pears to any notedly fiery spirits in the neighbourhood, as modern good people might distribute a bundle of tracts. ”

“ The prince of American pears, a variety exhibiting a rare combination of virtues, the richest and most exquisitely flavoured of fruits being borne on the healthiest and hardiest of trees, is the Seckel Pear, so general a favourite that no garden is considered complete without it. ”

“ The harvest, however, is usually so abundant that one tree will generally suffice to supply the wants of a large family, and an instance has been known of as many as eighty quarts a week having been gathered during the season from a single tree—a very old and famous one in a garden at Greenwich, which covered a circumference of 150 feet, and, in spite of Elder plants springing up within the decayed trunk, and Ivy clinging with stifling embrace to its exterior, continued to bear large quantities of the finest fruit of the sort in England. ”

“ In this country indeed, it may be looked on as a more aristocratic kind of luxury than even the pineapple, and is likely to remain so; for though certainly inferior to that most delicious fruit, this very inferiority tends to keep it exclusive: for while none perhaps would taste the Ananas once without desiring to partake of it again, comparatively few are partial to the peculiar flavour of melons, and being therefore only required by a select few, the fruit is not common because it is not popular, while it is only by becoming common that it could have a chance of attaining popularity. ”

“ In America many of the pears of Europe are grown, but are rated at a much lower standard than on this continent, the Jargonelle, though very common, being looked on as a poor fruit, and even the Marie Louise and Bon Chrétien as but second rate; for, as in the case of the apple, the seeds of most European fruits sown in America have in the course of time originated new varieties peculiarly adapted to that country, and far more highly esteemed there than the sorts from which they were produced. ”

“ Recent experiments, however, have shown that by due management it is possible to make the mulberry tree bear fruit when only three years old. Its propagation is by no means difficult, for a branch torn off and thrust at once into the ground, readily takes root, and becomes ere long a tree; while so tenacious is it of life, that roots have been known to send up shoots to the surface after having lain dormant in the earth for twenty-four years. It rarely reaches a height of thirty feet, and though of a much-branched spreading character, does not usually attain a very large size. ”

“ The diversity of size among melons classed as Cantaloupes is very great, but all are characterised by a more or less rough and thick rind, which considerably reduces the eatable proportion of the fruit, a defect which seems to increase in the larger-growing kinds, as in the old Black Rock Melon, for instance, which often attains a weight of 14 lbs., about three-parts of it, however, being composed of a rugged wall of rind studded with carbuncles, and a mass of seeds within, embedded in the fraction of eatable pulp, small indeed in quantity and very poor in quality. ”

“ Many kinds of game resort to it in the autumn to feed on its berries and find covert among the plants, which, in the pine forests of Scotland attain sometimes a height of three feet, and bear fruit as large as black currants, which the Highlanders make into a jelly, often mixed with whisky, to be presented to strangers as a special mark of hospitality. ”

“ The pear does not come into bearing so soon as the apple, seedlings seldom producing any fruit before the seventh or eighth year after planting; but though attacked by the same insects and liable to the same diseases it is usually found to retain its health and vigour far better, at least in Britain (for in France and America this is said not to be the case) , and reaches a much greater age, the longevity of pear trees being often reckoned by centuries. ”

“ It is this mass of cohering calices and ovaries which, gradually becoming fleshy and juicy, form eventually the fruit, each ovary maturing, in its two-celled interior, a single seed, and as it thus consists of “seeds embedded in pulp,” the appearance of the whole fully answers to the popular description of a “berry,” and has therefore earned for it the title of Mulberry. A modern botanist, however, would no more let this suffice to give it a place among berries, than he would consider that a butterfly must be classed among birds, because both have wings ”

“ Age too has much to do with the choice of them, for, unlike most other seeds, perfect freshness is so far from being a desideratum, that it is not until they are two years old that they are considered fit for sowing, since seed in which the exuberant vitality has not been checked and enfeebled by age, would give birth to plants too luxuriant in growth for the small space which is all that can be allotted to them where artificial culture is required. ”

“ In common with its near relative the fig, which it also resembles in the circumstance of its aggregate fruit being formed by the union of numerous flowers, the mulberry contains in every part of the tree a milky juice, which will coagulate into a coarse sort of india-rubber, and as this specially abounds in the white species, it has been surmised that the tenacity of the filament spun by the silk-worm may be due to this element of its food. It is rarely that the white mulberry, originally a native of Syria, is seen in England, its very inferior fruit being only fit to feed poultry ”

“ When fully ripe, so readily does the inky juice of the black mulberry burst through its tender skin, that it can scarcely he touched without leaving a sable stain upon the fingers, a circumstance which, it appears, is sometimes rather prejudicial to its position in society, a French writer remarking concerning the fruit, that “though many people are very fond of them, they are more often consumed in the country than at city repasts, where elegance ought to exclude them, since if not eaten with great care they stain the clothes.” ”

“ The fruit should always be cut from the plant in the morning, and the majority of the finer sorts should be eaten the day they are gathered, though if cut a day or two before they are ripe they may be kept for a week in a cool dark room, and some sorts will even keep for weeks under these conditions; for light has a great influence in facilitating the chemical changes on which maturation depends, and its deprivation, therefore, tends much to retard decay. ”

“ The delicately-tinged blossoms of the quince are similar in structure to those of the apple and pear, but are neither so pink as the former nor so colourless as the latter; while they grow singly and are much larger, being about the size of a wild-rose. ”

“ More generally cultivated, wherever it does still claim the cultivator’s care, as a stock whereon to graft the pear, in order to dwarf the growth of that tree, or to hasten the ripening of its fruit, than for the sake of its own produce, the latter is yet capable of being turned to better account than merely to be made into preserve, or used in minute quantities to add a flavour to apple-pies ”

“ Occasionally grown from cuttings as a surer method of securing an unchanged perpetuation of the parent plant, the usual mode of propagation is by seeds, which are tested, like witches of old, by being thrown into water, when floating on the surface ensures the condemnation of a melon-seed as certainly as it once did that of an old woman. ”

“ If, however, that delicacy be desired, perhaps the best mode of obtaining it is the one followed by the villagers in some parts of England, who cut a hole in the side of their pumpkins, scoop out the seeds and stringy part, then stuffing the cavity with apples and spice, bake the whole, and eat the case and its contents together. Plainly boiled in water, the pumpkin may be eaten, like its relative the vegetable marrow, as a vegetable, but the tender tops of the shoots of the plant, boiled like greens, are superior to the fruit for this purpose. ”

“ Of course when fine kinds are once obtained, by whatever means they may have been produced, nothing more is needed to perpetuate them than to continue their propagation to any extent by grafting; and as with regard to the hardier kinds at least Loudon assures us that the best pears can be grown with no more trouble and expense than inferior ones, it is to be hoped that eventually the former will quite supersede the latter, and what is still too exclusively a luxury for the wealthy at length be freely open to all classes. ”

“ A far hardier plant than the melon, in a rich soil and warm situation, the pumpkin, or, as it was formerly, and we are told still ought to be called, the pompion, grows luxuriantly and ripens its fruit perfectly in the open air in England ”

“ In England it is by no means easy to secure the requisite combination of a wet warm soil and a dry air, the covering used to confine the heat tending also to cause general moisture by producing evaporation: but in spite of these difficulties, our gardeners contrive to rear them in great perfection, and as some may be eaten as soon as gathered, and others must be kept for months, even quite into winter, they are obtainable during a great portion of the year. ”

“ The careful and expensive method of culture required in England for the production of melons is not necessary in the warmer parts of Europe; for though near Paris they are raised equally artificially in hotbeds of dung, tan, or other fermentable material, and under glass or frames of oiled paper, yet in the South of France the ground where they are grown is merely ploughed, the seed thrown in, and “Heaven does the rest.” ”

“ Spreading from Italy almost throughout Europe, it now grows spontaneously in most countries of mild temperature; and, as Gerard informs us, was common in his early times, in the hedges of England; but never ripening here sufficiently to be eaten raw, and having lost, perhaps undeservedly, much of the repute which it enjoyed two or three centuries ago, on account of its medicinal properties, it is now very seldom met with, and many persons are to be found even among those who have been born and brought up in the country, who have never tasted, or perhaps as much as seen a quince. ”

“ Albeit alike in some respects, the trees may be distinguished in a moment by their leaves, those of the apple being broader, very slightly serrated, of a yellow green colour, and hairy underneath, while the dark green foliage of the pear is elliptical, more serrated, and smooth on both sides, the upper surface being absolutely shining; and when both are full grown the low and spreading apple, often uncouthly irregular in form, seldom attains more than half the height of the tall, upright, shapely pear, always inclining to the pyramidal form. ”

“ Due limits, however, must be observed; for though seeds forty years old have been known to vegetate and grow into fruitful plants, their germination becomes doubtful if they are kept for more than three or four years. Though sometimes grown in the South of England, under hand-glasses, like cucumbers, they cannot generally be reared in this country in the open air, since 65° is the least temperature at which the seeds will germinate, and from 75° to 80° is needed before the fruit can be ripened. A sheltered hotbed, therefore, becomes here essential to their existence. ”