FIGS.
Figs have from the earliest times been reckoned among the delights of the palate.
Moses, in the Pentateuch, enumerates among the praises of the promised land, (Deut. viii. 8.) that it was a “Land of Fig Trees”.
The Athenians valued figs at least as highly as the Jews. Alexis (in the Deipnosophists) calls figs “Food for the Gods.” Pausanias says that the Athenian, Phytalus, was rewarded by Ceres for his hospitality, with the gift of the first fig-tree. Some foreign guest, no doubt, transmitted to him the plant, which he introduced into Attica. It succeeded so well there, that Athensæus brings forward Lynceus and Antiphanes vaunting the figs of Attica as the best on the earth. Horapollo, or rather his commentator Bolzair, says that when the master of a house is going a journey he hangs out a broom of fig-boughs for good luck.
By one of the laws of Solon all the products of the earth were forbidden to be exported from Athens; under this law the exportation of figs was prohibited, and it is from this circumstance we have the word sycophant from the Greek; those who violated this law were subject to a heavy penalty, and the informer against the delinquents was called a sycophant from the original word literally meaning an “exhibiter of figs,” as thereby substantiating his charge. The name was afterward more extensively applied, and is now associated with the ideas of meanness, servility, and calumny.
A taste for figs marked the progress of refinement in the Roman Empire. In Cato’s time but six sorts of figs were known; in Pliny’s twenty-nine. The sexual system of plants seems first to have been observed in the fig tree. Pliny in his Natural History alludes to this under the term caprification.
In modern times the esteem for figs has been more widely diffused; when Charles the 5th visited Holland in 1540, a Dutch merchant sent him, as the greatest delicacy which Zuricksee could offer, a plate of figs. The gracious Emperor dispelled for a moment the fogs of the climate by declaring, that he had never eaten figs in Spain with more pleasure. Carter praises the figs of Malaga; Tournefort those of Marseilles; Ray those of Italy; Brydone those of Sicily; Dumont those of Malta; Browne those of Thessaly; Pocock those of Mycone; De la Mourtraye those of Tenedos and Mitylene; Chandler those of Smyrna; Maillet those of Cairo; and Lady Mary Wortley Montague those of Tunis. What less can be inferred from this conspiring testimony than that wherever there is a fig there is a feast?
It remains for Jamaica, and the contiguous Islands, to acquire that celebrity for the growth of figs, which yet attaches to the Eastern Archipelago; to learn to dry them as in the Levant, and to supply the desserts of the English tables.
FRUITS,
CULTIVATED AT ROME IN THE TIME OF PLINY, THAT ARE NOW GROWN IN OUR ENGLISH GARDENS.
Apples.—The Romans had twenty-two sorts of Apples. Sweet Apples (melimala) for eating, and others for cookery. They had one sort without kernels.
[Eugene Aram, in his collections for a dictionary of the Celtic language, says that the name of the Apple Tree is a corruption of “Apollo’s Tree.”—“And that this is its original, will be easily deducible from a little reflection on the proofs in support of it. The prizes in the sacred games were the Olive Crown, Apples, Parsleys and the Pine. Lucian, in his Book of Games, affirms that Apples were the reward in the Sacred Games of Apollo; and Curtius asserts the same thing. It appears also that the Apple Tree was consecrated to Apollo before the Laurel; for both Pindar and Callimachus observe that Apollo did not put on the Laurel until after his conquest of the Python, and that he appropriated it to himself on account of his passion for Daphne, to whom the laurel was sacred. The Victor’s wreath at first was a bough with its apples hanging upon it, sometimes with a branch of laurel; and antiquity united these together as the reward of the Victor in the Pythian games.”]
Apricots.—Pliny says of the Apricot (Armeniaca) quæ sola et odore commendantur. He arranges them among his plums.—Martial valued them but little, as appears by his epigram, xiii. 46.
[The Apricot, we are told came originally from Armenia, whence its name Armeniaca. Wolfe, gardener to King Henry the 8th, first introduced Apricots into England. Tusser mentions the Apricot in his list of fruits cultivated here in 1573.]
Almonds—were abundant, both bitter and sweet. [The Almond was introduced into England in 1570; it is not, however, in Tusser’s list of fruits cultivated here in 1573.]
Cherries—were introduced into Rome in the year of the city 680, B. C. 73, and were carried thence to Britain 120 years after, A. D. 48. The Romans had eight kinds, a red one, a black one, a kind so tender as scarce to bear any carriage, a hard fleshed one (duracina) like our bigarreau, a small one with a bitterish flavour (laurea) like our little wild black, also a dwarf one, the tree bearing which did not exceed three feet in height.
[Cherries are said to have come originally from Cerasus, a city of Pontus, from which Lucullus brought them into Italy, after the Mithridatic War. They so generally pleased at Rome, and were so easily propagated in all climates into which the Romans extended their arms, that within the space of a hundred years, they had become common. It has been erroneously supposed that Cherries were first introduced into this country by Richard Haynes, fruiterer to King Henry the eighth, who planted them at Teynham, in Kent, whence they had the name of Kentish cherries; but Lydgate who wrote his poem called “Lickpenny” before the middle of the fifteenth century, or probably before the year 1415, mentions them in the following lines, as being commonly sold at that time by the hawkers in the streets of London:
“Hot pescode oon began to cry,
”Straberys rype, and cherreys in the ryse.”
Ryce, rice, or ris, properly means a long-branch; and the word is still used in that sense in the West of England.
Dr. Bulleyn shews there were plenty of good native cherries at Ketteringham, near Norwich; pears, called the Blackfriars, in and about that city; and excellent grapes at Blaxhall in Suffolk, where he was rector from 1550 to 1554.]
Chesnuts.—The Romans had six sorts, some more easily separated from the skin than others, and one with a red skin. They roasted them as we do.
[The chesnut, castanea, is a native of the South of Europe, and is said to take its name from Castanea, a city of Thessaly, where anciently it grew in great plenty. Gerard says that in his time there were several woods of chesnuts in England, particularly one near Feversham, in Kent; and Fitz-Stephen, in a description of London, written by him in Henry the second’s time, speaks of a very noble forest which grew on the north side of it. This tree grows sometimes to an amazing size. There is one at Lord Ducie’s at Tortworth, in the county of Gloucester, which measures 19 yards in circumference, and is mentioned by Sir Robert Atkyns, in his History of that County, as a famous tree in King John’s time; and by Mr. Evelyn in his Sylva, to have been so remarkable for its magnitude in the reign of King Stephen, as then to be called the great chesnut of Tortworth; from which it may be reasonably supposed to have been standing before the conquest. Lord Ducie had a drawing of it taken and engraved in 1772. Formerly a great part of London was built with chesnut and walnut timber.]
The Horse Chesnut was brought from the northern parts of Asia into Europe, about the year 1550, and was sent to Vienna, about the year 1558. From Vienna it migrated into Italy and France: but it comes to us from the Levant immediately. Gerard in his Herbal, printed in 1597, speaks of it only as a foreign Tree. In Johnson’s edition of the same Work printed in 1633, it is said, “Horse Chesnut groweth in Italy, and in sundry places of the East Country; it is now growing with Mr. Tradescant at South Lambeth.” Parkinson says “our Christian World had first the knowledge of it from Constantinople.”—The same Author places the Horse Chesnut in his Orchard, as a fruit tree between the Walnut and the Mulberry. How little it was then known, 1629, may be inferred from his saying not only that it is of a greater and more pleasant aspect, for the fair leaves, but also of a good use for the fruit, which is of a sweet taste, roasted and eaten as the ordinary sort.—This tree does not seem to have been so common a hundred years ago as it is now. Mr. Houghton (1700) mentions some at Sir William Ashhurst’s at Highgate, and especially at the Bishop of London’s at Fulham. Those now standing at Chelsea College were then very young. There was also a very fine one in the Pest-house garden near Old-Street, and another not far from the Ice-house under the shadow of the Observatory in Greenwich Park.
Figs.—The Romans had many sorts of figs, black and white, large and small; one as large as a pear, another no larger than an olive.
[The fig has been cultivated in England ever since 1562. It is omitted by Tusser in his list of fruits cultivated in our gardens. Cardinal Pole is said to have imported from Italy that tree, which is still growing in the garden of the Archbishop’s palace at Lambeth. It is the oldest fig tree that is known in this kingdom. In the Percy Household-book, the person who had the charge of providing for the consumption and use of the Earl of Northumberland’s numerous family, was ordered to purchase four coppets of figs, for which he was to pay twenty pence for each coppet. This quantity was to serve for one year.]
Medlars.—The Romans had two kinds of medlars, the one larger, and the other smaller.
Mulberries.—The Romans had two kinds of the black sort, a larger and a smaller. Pliny speaks also of a mulberry growing on a briar: Nascuntur et in rubis, (1. xv. sect. 27) but whether this means the raspberry, or the common blackberry, does not appear.
[The mulberry, Morus, is a native of Persia, whence it was introduced into the southern parts of Europe, and is commonly cultivated in England, Germany, and other countries where the winters are not very severe. “We are informed,” says Forsyth in his treatise on fruit trees, “that mulberries were first introduced into this country in 1596; but I have reason to believe that they were brought hither previous to that period, as many old trees are to be seen standing at this day about the sites of ancient abbeys and monasteries, from which it is at least probable that they had been introduced before the dissolution of religious houses. Four large mulberry trees are still standing on the site of an old kitchen garden, now part of the pleasure-ground, at Sion House, which, perhaps may have stood there ever since that house was a monastery. The first Duke of Northumberland has been heard to say, that these trees were above 300 years old. At the Priory near Stanmore, Middlesex, (the seat of the Marquis of Abercorn) there are also some ancient Mulberry trees. The Priory was formerly a religious house.”
Gerard in his description of the mulberry tree has the following curious paragraph: “Hexander in Athenæus affirmeth, that the mulberry trees in his time did not bring forth fruit in twenty years together; and that so great a plague of the gout reigned and raged so generally, as not only men, but boys, and women were troubled with that disease.”
Tusser, in his list of fruits cultivated in England in 1573 enumerates the Mulberry.—Gerard, who published his history of plants in 1597, says in that book, that Mulberry Trees then grew in sundry gardens in England.]
Nuts.—The Romans had Hazel Nuts and Filberds. They roasted these Nuts.
Pears.—Of these the Romans had many sorts, both Summer and Winter Fruit, melting and hard; they had more than thirty six kinds, some were called Libralia. We have our Pound Pear.
[Pliny mentions twenty kinds of this fruit, and Virgil five or six.
Ælian describing the most ancient food of several nations, reports that at Argos they fed chiefly upon Pears.
Tusser, states that “Pears of all sorts” were cultivated here in his time.
The Arms of Wardon Abbey, in Bedfordshire, as given by Tanner, are Argent, Three Pears, Or.—Quere, if these are the species called Wardons, or if they are peculiar to that part of England.
The Wardon Pear is common in Yorkshire.]
Plums.—The Romans had a multiplicity of sorts (ingens turba prunorum) black, white, and variegated; one sort was called asinia, from its cheapness; another damascena; this had much stone and little flesh: from Martial’s Epigram, xiii. 29, we may conclude that it was what we now call prunes.
[The Plum is generally supposed to be a native of Asia, and the Damascene (Damson) to take its name from Damascus, a city of Syria.
Tusser enumerates in his list of fruits “Grene or Grass Plums, and Peer Plums, black and yellow.”
Lord Cromwell introduced the Perdrigon Plum in the Reign of Henry the seventh.]
Quinces.—The Romans had three sorts, one was called Chrysomela, from its yellow flesh. They boiled them with honey as we make marmalade. See Martial, xiii. 24.
[The Quince is called Cydonia, from Cydon, a town of Crete, famous for this fruit.—Tusser mentions it among his fruit-trees, and Gerard says it was cultivated here in his time.]
Services.—They had the Apple-shaped, the Pear-shaped, and a small kind, probably the same that we gather wild, the Azarole.
[There are three sorts of the Service Tree cultivated in England, namely the cultivated Service; the Wild Service or Mountain Ash; and the Maple leaved Service. The first is a native of the warmer climes of Europe; and the other two grow wild in different parts of England.]
Strawberries.—The Romans had Strawberries, but do not appear to have prized them. The climate is too warm to produce this fruit in perfection unless in the hills.
[Tusser enumerates Strawberries, red and white, as being cultivated when he wrote.]
Vines.—The Romans had a multiplicity of Vines, both thick-skinned, (duracina,) and thin-skinned: one Vine growing at Rome produced 12 Amphoræ of juice, equal to 84 gallons. They had round-berried, and long-berried sorts, one so long that it was called dactilydes, the grapes being like the fingers on the hand. Martial (xiii. 22.) speaks favourably of the hard-skinned grape for eating.
[In Domesday Book, (1. p. 8. col 1.) there are said to be in the Bishop of Bayeux’s Manor of Chert, in the county of Kent, three arpents of Vineyard, and in the Manor of Leeds (1. p. 7. col. 4.) belonging to the same Bishop, two Arpents of Vineyard.
In several Charters in the “Registrum Roffensis” mention is made of the Vineyard belonging to the Monks of Rochester, wherein grew great quantities of grapes; and which is also, in much later days, said by Worlidge, to have produced excellent wines. Bishop Hamon presented some of the wine and grapes of his own growth, at Halling, near Rochester, to Edward the second, when at Bockinfold; and in some old leases of the bishoprick, mention has been found made, of considerable quantities of Blackberries being delivered to the Bishop of Rochester, by sundry of his Tenants, for the purpose of colouring the wine growing in his Vineyard. This gives us some idea of what sort the wine was, and also deserves well to be compared with that ancient usage of making wines in this country, the remembrance whereof is preserved by means of some records of the reign of Henry the third; amongst which are two precepts, the one (Claus. An. 34. Hen. III.) to the keepers of the king’s wines at York, to deliver out to one Robert (de Monte Pessulano) such wines, and as much as he pleased to make for the king’s use, against the feast of Christmas, (Claret) such drink, as he used to make in preceding years. The first record says, ad potus regis pretiosos delicatos inde faciendos. The second says, ad Claretum inde faciend.—Ad opus regis sicut annis preteritis facere consuevit. And both may be seen at length in Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. p. 11. Perhaps it may not be undeserving notice, that even to the beginning of the eighteenth Century, almost all red wine was, in this country, called Claret.
Honey and Mead, constituted a part of the mixture of the royal Norman Claret, and for several ages Claret was considered as belonging to the Materia Medica; and formed a part of the old English Apothecaries store of Medicines, preserved in white glazed earthern pitchers, with labelled inscriptions burnt in large blue letters in the ware; several of which are still preserved.
Several other Monasteries and Abbeys, had remarkable Vineyards, as well as Rochester; particularly that of St. Edmund’s Bury; that at Ely; that at Peterborough; and even that at Darley Abbey, in Derbyshire; And indeed most of the original Vineyards mentioned are found to have belonged to Abbeys. It is a curious circumstance, and elucidating the prices of the age, that in the time of Henry the third, a Dolium. or cask of the best wine, sold for forty shillings, and sometimes even for twenty.
For an enlarged account of Vineyards in England see Archæologia, vol. i. p. 821.; and vol. iii. p. 53. and 67.]
Walnuts.—The Romans had soft shelled, and hard shelled, as we have. In the golden age, when men lived upon acorns, the gods lived upon Walnuts, hence the name Juglans, that is Jovis glans.[[1]]
As a matter of curiosity, it has been deemed expedient, to add a list of the fruits cultivated in our English Gardens in the year 1573. This list is taken from Tusser’s Five hundred points of good Husbandry.
Thomas Tusser, who had received a liberal education at Eton school, and at Trinity hall, Cambridge, lived many years as a farmer in Suffolk and Norfolk. He afterwards removed to London, where he published in 1557, the first edition of his work, under the title of “One hundred points of good husbandry.”
In his fourth edition, from which this list is taken, he first introduced the subject of Gardening, and has given us not only a list of the fruits, but also of all the plants then cultivated in our gardens, either for pleasure or profit, under the following heads:—
“Seedes and herbes for the kychen, herbes and roots for sallets and sauce, herbes and rootes to boyle or to butter, strewing herbes of all sorts, herbes, branches, and flowers for windowes and pots, herbs to still in summer, necessarie herbes to grow in the gardens for physick not reherst before.”
This list consists of more than 150 species besides the following fruits:—
Apple Trees of all sorts—Apricots
Barberries—Bullass, black and white
Cherries, red and black—Chesnuts—Cornet Plums[[2]]
Damsons, white and black
Filberds, red and white
Gooseberries—Grapes, white and red—Green or Grass Plums.
Hurtle Berries.[[3]]
Medlars or Merles—Mulberries.
Peaches, white and red[[4]]—Pears of all sorts. Pear Plums, black and yellow.
Quince Trees.
Rasps—Raisins.[[5]]
Small Nuts—Strawberries, red and white—Service Trees.
Wardons, white and red—Walnuts—Wheat Plums.