Some authors have ascribed the introduction of the apple into this country to the Romans, and others to the Normans; in both cases, however, without any evidence or well grounded authority. Mr. Loudon says, “The apple was, in all probability, introduced into Britain by the Romans, as well as the pear; and like that fruit, perhaps, re-introduced by the heads of religious houses on their establishment, after the introduction of christianity.”[A] It is more probable that it has existed as an indigenous tree throughout all ages, and that the most ancient varieties were accidental variations of the original species, with which the forests abounded. These being cultivated, and subjected to the art and industry of man, would give rise to other varieties, and thus a gradual amelioration of the fruit would be obtained. The earliest records make mention of the apple in the most familiar terms. That it was known to the ancient Britons, before the arrival of the Romans is evident from their language. In Celtic, it is called _Abhall_, or _Abhal_; in Welch, _Avall_; in Armoric, _Afall_ and _Avall_; in Cornish, _Aval_ and _Avel_. The word is derived from the pure Celtic, _ball_, signifying any round body.[B] The ancient Glastonbury was called by the Britons Ynys Avallaç, and Ynys Avallon, which signify an apple orchard,[C] and from this its Roman name _Avallonia_ was derived. The apple must therefore have been known in Britain before the arrival of the Romans; and that it continued to exist after they left the island, and before the Norman conquest, is certified by William of Malmesbury, who says, that King Edgar in 973, while hunting in a wood was left alone by his associates; in this situation he was overcome by an irresistable desire to sleep, and alighting from his horse he lay down under the shade of a _wild apple tree_.[D] Shortly after the Norman conquest, the same author writes with reference to Gloucestershire. “Cernas tramites publicos vestitos pomiferis arboribus, non insitiva manus industria, sed ipsius solius humi natura.” Some writers[E] entertain the popular error that the cultivation of apples was not a branch of rural economy in England before Richard Harris planted orchards in several parts of Kent, in the reign of Henry the Eighth; but there is evidence to the contrary. In a bull of Pope Alexander the Third, in the year 1175, confirming the property belonging to the monastery of Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire, is mentioned, “The town of Twining with all the lands, _orchards_, meadows, &c.;”[F] and in a charter of King John, granting property to the priory of Lanthony, near Gloucester, is mentioned “the church of Herdesley, with twelve acres of land, _and an orchard_.”[G] But its cultivation was not confined to the southern counties, for we find there was an extensive manufacture of cider as far north as Richmond, in Yorkshire, in the early part of the thirteenth century. It would be too much to say that all the varieties cultivated at an