_FRUITS_.
This Part (5) completes the volume of "Vegetable Substances used in
the Arts and in Domestic Economy." The first portion--_Timber Trees_
was noticed at some length in our last volume (page 309,) and received
our almost unqualified commendation, which we are induced to extend to
the Part now before us. Still, we do not recollect to have pointed
out to our readers that which appears to us the great recommendatory
feature of this series of works--we mean the arrangement of the
volumes--their subdivisions and exemplifications--and these evince a
master-hand in compilation.
Every general reader must be aware that little novelty could be
expected in a brief History and Description of Timber Trees and
Fruits, and that the object of the Useful Knowledge Society was not
merely to furnish the public with new views, but to present in the
most attractive form the most entertaining facts of established
writers, and illustrate their views with the observations of
contemporary authors as well as their own personal acquaintance with
the subjects. In this manner, the Editor has taken "a general
and rapid view of fruits," and, considering the great hold their
description possesses on all readers, we are disposed to think almost
too rapid. We should have enjoyed a volume or two more than half a
volume of such reading as the present; but as we are not purchasers,
and are unacquainted with the number to which the Society propose
to extend their works, we ought not perhaps to raise this objection,
which, to say the truth, is a sort of negative commendation. Hitherto,
we have been accustomed to see compilations of pretensions similar
to the present, executed with little regard to neatness or unity,
or weight or consideration. Whole pages and long extracts have been
stripped and sliced off books, with little rule or arrangement, and
what is still worse, without any acknowledgment of the sources.
The last defect is certainly the greatest, since, in spite of
ill-arrangement, an intelligent inquirer may with much trouble, avail
himself of further reference to the authors quoted, and thus complete
in his own mind what the compiler had so indifferently begun. The work
before us is, however, altogether of a much higher order than general
compilations. The introductions and inferences are pointed and
judicious, and the facts themselves of the most interesting character,
are narrated in a condensed but perspicuous style; while the slightest
reference will prove that the best and latest authorities have
been appreciated. Thus, in the History and Description of Fruits,
the Transactions of the Horticultural Society are frequently and
pertinently quoted to establish disputed points, as well as the
journals of intelligent travellers and naturalists; with occasional
poetical embellishments, which lend a charm even to this attractive
species of reading.
To quote the history of either Fruit entire, would not so well denote
the character of the work as would a few of the most striking passages
in the descriptions. In the introductory chapter we are pleased with
the following passage on _Monastic Gardens_.
"The monks, after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity,
appear to have been the only gardeners. As early as 674, we have
a record, describing a pleasant and fruit-bearing close at Ely,
then cultivated by Brithnoth, the first Abbot of that place. The
ecclesiastics subsequently carried their cultivation of fruits as
tar as was compatible with the nature of the climate, and the
horticultural knowledge of the middle ages. Whoever has seen an old
abbey, where for generations destruction only has been at work, must
have almost invariably found it situated in one of the choicest spots,
both as to soil and aspect; and if the hand of injudicious improvement
has not swept it away, there is still the 'Abbey-garden.' Even though
it has been wholly neglected--though its walls be in ruins, covered
with stone-crop and wall-flower, and its area produce but the rankest
weeds--there are still the remains of the aged fruit trees--the
venerable pears, the delicate little apples, and the luscious black
cherries. The chestnuts and the walnuts may have yielded to the axe,
and the fig trees and vines died away;--but sometimes the mulberry is
left, and the strawberry and the raspberry struggle among the ruins.
There is a moral lesson in these memorials of the monastic ages. The
monks, with all their faults, were generally men of peace and study;
and these monuments show that they were improving the world, while the
warriors were spending their lives to spoil it. In many parts of Italy
and France, which had lain in desolation and ruin from the time of
the Goths, the monks restored the whole surface to fertility; and in
Scotland and Ireland there probably would not have been a fruit tree
till the sixteenth century, if it had not been for their peaceful
labours. It is generally supposed that the monastic orchards were in
their greatest perfection from the twelfth to the fifteenth century."