Phillips thus describes the favorites of his time, most of which we find in our own orchards, and still in good repute:-- "Now turn thine eye to view Alcinous' groves, The pride of the Phoeacian isle, from whence, Sailing the spaces of the boundless deep, To Ariconian precious fruits arrived:-- The pippin burnished o'er with gold, the moyle Of sweetest honied taste, the fair pearmain, Tempered, like comeliest nymph, with red and white; Nor does the Eliot least deserve thy care, Nor John's apple, whose withered rind, intrenched With many a furrow, aptly represents Decrepit age; nor that from Harvey named, Quick relishing. Why should we sing the thrift, Codling, or Pomroy, or of pimpled coat The russet; the red-streak, that once Was of the sylvan kind, uncivilized, Of no regard, till Scudamore's skilful hand Improved her, and by courtly discipline Taught her the savage nature to forget: Let every tree in every garden own The red-streak as supreme, whose pulpous fruit With gold irradiate, and vermilion spires, Tempting, not fatal, as the birth of that Primeval interdicted plant, that won Fond Eve, in hapless hour, to taste and die." A quaint old Englishman, writing about orchards, quotes the proverb: "It will beggar a doctor to live where orchards thrive." So Cowley writes:-- "Nor does this happy place only dispense Its various pleasures to the sense, Here health itself doth live, That salt of life which doth to all a relish give; Its standing pleasure and intrinsic wealth, The body's virtue, and the soul's good fortune, health. The tree of life when it in Eden stood, Did its immortal head to heaven rear; It lasted a tall cedar till the flood, Now a small thorny shrub it doth appear, Nor will it thrive too everywhere; It always here is freshest seen, 'Tis only here an evergreen: If, through the strong and beauteous fence Of temperance and innocence, And wholesome labors and a quiet mind, Diseases passage find, They must fight for it, and dispute it hard Before they can prevail; Scarce any plant is growing here, Which against death some weapon does not bear: Let cities boast that they provide For life the ornaments of pride; But 'tis the country and the field That furnish it with staff and shield." Nor can we spare his praises of budding and grafting from our account:--