PEAR M A IN.
Much that is of rural—and indeed dietetic—interest is contained in these records. The emphasis on Peannain, as the local and apparently most highly prized variety, indicates that this apple, grown now in both Canada and America, is among the very aristocrats, with a came-over- with-the-Conqueror pride in it. The adjective Worcester before it indicates, of course, a later variety. Not a great number of the technically most characteristic cider apples are, I think, grown at all in the East of England as they are in the West ; and I fancy more apples of a general sort have been used for wine-making in the East than in the West. Indeed, on inquiry, I could not discover that some of the standard cider apples or perry pears of Devon and Hereford had ever been tried in Norfolk or Suffolk. Would it not be worth the while of county horticultural stations in East Anglia to make experiments of the suitability of these to the soil and climate ? It seems tolerably certain that cider apples and orchards will increase in value now that methods have been discovered of imparting to cider, and preserving in it, the subtle ethers that give the best wines their bouquet. Would it not also have trade advantages if we resumed the custom of the thirteenth century and called cider wine,
without more ado ?
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