A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE At this time individual farmers in the county produced as much as 500 hogsheads of cider and perry, some of the orchards being from 30 to 40 acres each. It is clear then that at the close of the 1 8th century the making of fruit-liquor in Herefordshire was a flourishing industry, and we may well inquire the cause of its decline. In the first place, during the great French war the price of corn and meat rose enormously, and to produce these farmers grubbed up many of their orchards and became careless in the making of cider and perry. Secondly, middlemen and merchants adulterated the liquor and thereby brought it into discredit.^ Yet even during this period there were some who were trying to prevent the retrogade movement. Mr. Knight, to whose skill and energy Hereford- shire owes a great debt, presented several new apples to the world, among them the Grange apple, which fruited first in 1802 and obtained the prize of the Herefordshire Agricultural Society. He also produced the Siberian Harvey in 1807 and the Foxley in 1808. Of late years, aided by more careful and scientific methods in the manufacture, great efforts have been made to restore these wholesome drinks to the position they held in the days of Beale and Evelyn, who said ' Cider is above all the most eminent soberly to exhilerate the spirits of us hypochondriacal islanders and chase away that unsociable spleen.' Most of the orchards in Herefordshire are planted with standard fruit trees on grassland, the area of land that is regularly cultivated between the trees being small in quantity compared with Kent. The apple and pear orchards are mainly situated on the rich alluvial deposits in the river valleys and upon the loam and clay soil of the Old Red Sand- stone formation. Many of the orchards are very old ; in 1897 there were standing at Hellens Barland pear trees planted in the time of Queen Anne, producing excellent perry.*' As a rule trees have been renewed as the old ones died, sometimes, however, very irregularly and sometimes not at all, and the general appearance of the orchards, owing to the carelessness of many of the farmers, does not compare well with those of Kent. Many of the orchards have been formed by planting fruit trees between the rows in the hop-yards, the hops being grubbed up when the trees are well grown, and the land thus converted into orchard, for land suitable for hops will almost always grow apples. Apples may be divided roughly into three varieties, those grown for cider ; dessert or table apples, and cooking apples. The chief cider apples in Herefordshire are, the Foxwhelp, the most celebrated of all. Red Cowarne, Hagloe Crab, Brandy Apple, Cockagee, Stire, Dymmock Red, Redstreak, Royal Wilding, Garter, Skyrme's Kernel, Knotted Kernel, Cherry Norman, Strawberry Norman, White Norman, Cider Lady's Finger. The chief dessert apples are the Ribston, Golden, and King Pippin, Cox's Orange Pippin, Margel, Court of Wick, Blenheim Orange. And the chief cooking, Keswick, Codlin, Wellington, Lord SufEeld, Collins, Alfreston. The principal perry pears are the Taynton Squash, according to the Herefordshire Pomona the first and best, the old Barland, HufFcap, Oldfield, Rock pear. Pine pear, Blakeney Red, and Thorn pear. The best known dessert pears, the Doyenne d'Etd, Chaumontel, Cattilac, Williams' Bon Chretien, Beurrd Diel, Bergamot, Duchesse d'Angoul^me, and Marie Louise. It should be remembered, however, that the same sort of fruit may be called by different names even in the same parish. In 1877 Herefordshire had more acres of fruit-land than any other county, the figures for the principal being : — ^^ Acres Herefordshire .......... 24,885 Devon ............ 24,776 Somerset ........... 20,921 Worcester ........... 14,621 Kent I3>097 Gloucester ........... 11,965 In 1905 Kent had deprived it of first place, and the respective acreage now divided into small fruit and orchards was : — Small fruit Orchards ^^"' ■•........ 22,050 29.304 Hereford gio 27,981 S;^°"; 1,363 27,472 Srr : : ^'^'^ -'"^ Gloucester 633 25,405 1,650 20,338 C. W. RadclifFe Coolce, Cider and Perry, 9, 10. "Ibid 6 Joum. Roy. ^gric. Soc. Engl. (2nd ser.), xiv, 472. 428
