early period, were indigenous to this country; many no doubt, were introduced at the Norman conquest, and it is probable that in the middle ages some varieties were introduced from the continent, by members of the different religious houses which then existed, who not unfrequently had personal intercourse with France, and who devoted considerable attention to horticulture; but there is every reason to believe that the earliest varieties were native productions. The oldest works which treat on the cultivation of fruits, afford little or no information as to these early varieties. In some ancient documents of the twelfth century, we find the Pearmain[H] and Costard mentioned, but the horticultural works of the period are too much occupied with the fallacies and nonsense which distinguish those of the Roman agricultural writers, to convey to us any knowledge of the early pomology of this country. Turner in his Herbal, has no record of any of the varieties, and simply states, in reference to the apple, “I nede not to descrybe thys tre, because it is knowen well inoughe in all countres.” Barnaby Googe mentions as, “Chiefe in price, the Pippin, the Romet, the Pomeroyall, the Marigold, with a great number of others that were too long to speake of.” Leonarde Mascal gives instruction how “to graffe the Quyne Apple;” but that is the only variety he mentions. In a note book in the possession of Sir John Trevelyan, of Nettlecombe, near Taunton, which was kept by one of his ancestors, from the year 1580 to 1584, is an entry of “The names of Apelles, which I had their graffes from Brentmarch, from one Mr. Pace--_Item_, the Appell out of Essex; Lethercott, or Russet Apell; Lounden Peppen; Kew Goneling, or the Croke; Glass Appell or Pearmeane; Red Stear; Nemes Appell, or Grenlinge; Bellabone; Appell out of Dorsettsher; Domine quo Vadis.” In “The Husbandman’s Fruitfull Orchard,” we have Pippins, Pearemains, John Apples, Winter Russetings, and Leather Coats. Gerard enumerates and figures “The Pome Water, the Baker’s Ditch, the King of Apples, the Quining or Queene of Apples, the Sommer Pearemaine,” and “the Winter Pearemaine;” and he says, “I have seene in the pastures and hedgerowes about the grounds of a worshippfull gentleman, dwelling two miles from Hereford, called _M. Roger Bednome_, so many trees of all sortes, that the seruants drinke for the most part no other drinke, but that which is made of Apples. The quantitie is such, that by the report of the gentleman himselfe, the parson hath for tithe many hogsheads of Syder.” [A] Arb. Brit. vol. ii, p. 895. [B] Armstrong’s Gaelic Dictionary. [C] Owen’s Dictionary of the Welch Language. [D] Lib. ii. cap. 8. [E] Duncumb’s History of Herefordshire, vol. 1, p. 187. [F] Rudder’s History of Gloucestershire, App. liii., No. xxxv. [G] Rudder’s History of Gloucestershire, App. xxvii., No. xix. [H] Blomefield’s History of Norfolk, vol. xi., p. 242.