[30] This list was made out by the Horticultural Society in 1832, and may now be considerably augmented.
As an evidence of the facility with which new sorts can be obtained, there is scarcely a country town or place in orchard districts but has given its name to some apple. Thus we have Canadian Pippin, Newtown Pippin, Carlisle and Keswick Codlin, Hawthenden, &c.; and the names of fruit-growers and others attached to apples is almost endless; as thus: Ashmead’s Kernel, Nelson’s Codlin, Lucombe’s Seedling, Lord Nelson, Lord Raglan, &c., &c.
The subject of “sorts,” as applied to fruit, is one of great interest, as the facility with which these can be obtained renders it possible to procure fruit possessing very different properties and capabilities, adapted, not only to a great variety of uses, but with powers of adaptation to different soils, and a wide range of climatic differences.
These powers of adaptation have, indeed, resulted in the preservation of many sorts, but it also causes the neglect of some others; for as fashion takes up with new favourites old ones are neglected until they die out, and, if not become entirely lost, their stocks are lessened, so that the chance of a good choice for their continuance becomes more difficult year by year. We believe this to have more to do with the decline of old favourites than any inherent principle of decay with which grafts are said to be endowed.
The many sorts of apples differing so much in flavour and keeping powers, enable this fruit to be employed for a variety of purposes, such as—
Culinary Apples, used for tarts, puddings, &c., &c.;
Dessert Apples, usually of a sweet sub-acid flavour and crisp texture, eaten raw;
Cider Apples, the expressed juice of which forms English Cider (Cidre, French).
The same distinctions apply to pears, with the difference that their juice is termed Perry.
Now, with regard to the two first, we need here only mention them incidentally, as their description belongs more properly to the horticulturist, or pomologist, than to the farmer; at the same time it must be confessed that both culinary and dessert apples may be made a source of profit by the farmer, as they would always find ready purchasers; but the difficulty a farmer meets with in their cultivation results from the circumstance that it is not easy to exert that watchfulness over broad acres necessary to protect sweet apples from the predatory urchins with which every country parish abounds, a propensity, indeed, not sufficiently checked by the elders, whose plea that “it is only a few apples, and that children will be children,” affords just that amount of encouragement which too often ends in more serious acts of larceny.
As regards cider fruit, we would here dissent from the common belief that sour apples are the best for cider-making. We believe that the sweeter the apple, and the higher the specific gravity of the juice, the better the cider. Many, then, of our culinary and dessert apples would make most excellent drink; at the same time there are many sorts that will not “cook,” whose flesh cannot be got to become soft and pulpy, but rather hard and tough by the processes either of boiling or baking. Many sorts whose flavour is not sufficiently agreeable to be eaten raw, and yet these may yield on expression a sweet juice, resulting in a strong and agreeable cider.
Now, although there can be little doubt but that the quality of cider is much influenced by the sort of fruit from which it is made, we are inclined to the belief that the nature of the soil has, if possible, a still more decided influence upon the result. We therefore now direct attention to some of the best cider districts in England, which may be classed as follows:—